If your Windows computer is currently serving you the Blue Screen of Death, take heart in the fact that you aren’t alone. Windows outages are being reported across the globe, apparently caused by a CrowdStrike issue.
“CrowdStrike is aware of reports of crashes on Windows hosts related to the Falcon Sensor,” the cybersecurity company wrote in an alert confirming the outage at 1:30 a.m. ET on Friday. CrowdStrike’s Falcon Sensor is software designed to prevent computer systems from cyber attacks.
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“Symptoms include experiencing a bugcheck\blue screen error related to the Falcon Sensor,” CrowdStrike’s alert continued. “Our Engineering teams are actively working to resolve this issue and there is no need to open a support ticket.”
Though the CrowdStrike issue is specifically causing Windows to crash, the problem seems to be having further reaching implications as well. Considering that Windows is an incredibly popular operating system and CrowdStrike an incredibly popular cybersecurity company, multiple companies and services also appear to be experiencing outages due to their computers being down.
Microsoft acknowledged the issue as well. “We’re aware of an issue affecting Windows devices due to an update from a third-party software platform. We anticipate a resolution is forthcoming,” a Microsoft spokesperson says.
The outages are global, and massive. Here’s what’s affected
Reports of outages have rolled in from several countries around the world, including Australia, New Zealand, India, Japan, and the UK. As of writing, crowdsourced outage monitor DownDetector is indicating a spike in issues across a slew of platforms and businesses in the U.S. as well, including Amazon Web Services, Instagram, eBay, Visa, ADT, and PlentyOfFish.
Airline outages
Several U.S. airlines such as American, Delta, and United Airlines have been grounded due to communications issues, seemingly also the result of the outage.
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UK’s Ryanair announced that their booking and check-in system is currently down.
The Federal Aviation Administration said on X it was “closely monitoring a technical issue impacting IT systems at U.S. airlines, with updates available at fly.faa.gov.
Credit: Mashable screenshot: DownDetector
See our detailed coverage of all affected airlines here.
Other affected businesses
Supermarkets, banks, airlines, telecommunications companies, and TV broadcasters are among the businesses impacted, with shoppers in Australia reportedly unable to pay for groceries due to electronic payment systems being down.
How to fix the CrowdStrike Windows BSOD issue
Fortunately, CrowdStrike has since announced at 2:30 a.m. ET that it has identified the update causing the issue and rolled it back. The company also offered a workaround for anyone having problems:
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“Boot Windows into Safe Mode or the Windows Recovery Environment
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“Navigate to the C:\Windows\System32\drivers\CrowdStrike directory
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“Locate the file matching ‘C-0000029*.sys’, and delete it.
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“Boot the host normally.”
Of course, having to do this for every single computer in multiple companies across the globe is still likely to take some time.
Crowdstrike stock plummeting
CrowdStrike’s stock is down more than 21% in pre-market trading on Friday. By this metric, the company’s market cap has shrunk by $16 billion.
This story is developing…