Until Friday morning, many people had either never heard of CrowdStrike or had little reason to think about it. But as flights were canceled, broadcasters went off the air, trains halted, and medical procedures were delayed worldwide, the company’s name quickly became widely recognized. So, what exactly is CrowdStrike?
Founded in 2011, CrowdStrike is a cloud-based cybersecurity firm that provides software designed to protect systems from hackers and security breaches. Its software is used across various industries to safeguard against cyber threats.
According to the University of Denver, which offers the platform to its students and staff, “Once CrowdStrike is installed, it actively scans for threats on your machine without having to manually run virus scans.”
Here is what you need to know
CrowdStrike’s software has broad access privileges across a computer system, including sensitive areas. This means that when errors occur, the impact can be widespread.
On Friday morning, a flawed update to CrowdStrike’s Falcon Sensor software caused widespread issues for users of Microsoft Windows. This glitch led to numerous disruptions, including flight cancellations and broadcast interruptions, affecting millions globally.
What is Microsoft saying?
Microsoft has acknowledged the problem and is working on “mitigation actions.” The company stated, “Our services are still seeing continuous improvements while we continue to take mitigation actions.” “We remain committed in treating this event with the highest priority and urgency while we continue to address the lingering impact for the Microsoft 365 apps that are in a degraded state,” Microsoft added.
“Not a cyberattack,” says CrowdStrike CEO
In a post on X, CrowdStrike’s CEO, George Kurtz, confirmed that the issue was not a “security incident or cyberattack.” The company has since released an updated fix for the software. However, independent cybersecurity researcher Lukasz Olejnik warned that outages might continue as it remains unclear how to address the problems in already affected computers.
This isn’t the first time CrowdStrike has made headlines. The company’s analysts were involved in investigating the 2016 data breach of the Democratic National Committee, where they identified two groups of Russian operatives who had accessed a DNC server.
As CrowdStrike works to resolve the current crisis, the company’s role in cybersecurity and its recent challenges have gained significant attention.
What Is CrowdStrike? The Cybersecurity Firm at the Center of a Global IT Outage world-news World News | Latest International Global World News | Todays Breaking News Headlines
