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CrowdStrike bug: Windows BSOD hits offices to banks to airports, Australia govt calls emergency meeting

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Microsoft Windows 10 users across the world are facing a massive outage caused by the latest Crowdstrike update that has led to a Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) error for many users. The buggy update from Crowdstrike is causing affected PCs and servers to go offline, triggering a recovery boot loop that prevents them from starting properly. This has resulted in interrupted services at banks and airports across the world. Australian banks, airlines, and TV broadcasters were the first to raise the alarm about the outage. In fact, the massive outage has caused the Australian government to call for an emergency meeting to tackle the issue. “We have widespread reports of BSODs on Windows hosts, occurring on multiple sensor versions,” reads a support note on CrowdStrike website. CrowdStrike is a cybersecurity software used by many offices on Windows systems for threat protection. If you are also facing the Blue Screen of Death, here is how you can resolve the issue.

Servers of several banks around the world, including that of StateBank of India, ICICI Bank, Bendigo Bank, Commonwealth Bank, and Suncorp Bank have gone offline, according to reports on Downdetector at the time of writing the story. While reports are still coming in of banks being down in Australia, New Zealand and India, many other banks in addition to these, are expected to be affected worldwide.

We have reached out to Microsoft for an update on the issue but we have yet to receive a response.

Crowdstrike has also acknowledged the issues and says that the issue’s “symptoms include hosts experiencing a bugcheck\blue screen error related to the Falcon Sensor. Our engineering teams are actively working to resolve this issue and there is no need to open a support ticket.”

The New Zealand Herald has also reported that several banks in the country have been affected by the Crowdstrike faulty update. There have been reports of problems with debit and credit cards, including those from ASB, ANZ, and Kiwibank. Additionally, ANZ Tap n Pay and Visa payWave services are reported to be down.

Meanwhile, the Australian government has called for an emergency meeting due to widespread outages impacting various sectors, such as news outlets, banks, supermarkets, airports, and telecommunications providers. The government’s spokesperson has shared a statement saying: “The Australian Government is collaborating closely with the National Cyber Security Coordinator regarding this ongoing outage. We are aware that Triple-0 services remain unaffected. The current information indicates that this outage is due to a technical issue with a third-party software platform used by the affected companies.”

In addition to banks, the issue has also affected airlines, news channels, pharmacies and several other services around the world. Users on X are sharing posts of boarding an aircraft with handwritten boarding passes. There are images coming in from Australia of pharmacies taking orders via phone calls. Many people in New Zealand are also reporting issues with transport services, including delayed flights. Delhi Airport has also shared a post on X saying the global IT issue has caused “some of the services at the Delhi Airport” to be “temporarily impacted”. “We are closely working with all our stakeholders to minimise the inconvenience to our flyers”, the statement added.

Akasa Air in India has also revealed that its services have been impacted by the issue. On X, the company stated, “Due to infrastructure issues with our service provider, some of our online services, including booking, check-in, and manage booking services, will be temporarily unavailable. We are currently following manual check-in and boarding processes at the airports.”

Published By:

Nandini Yadav

Published On:

Jul 19, 2024

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