“Due to a bug in the validation program, one of the two updates was validated even though it contained problematic data,” the company explained in an incident report.
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CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity firm behind a global computer outage on July 19, said Wednesday that the outage was caused by a flaw in its testing software. In an incident report, the company said the bug had been transmitted to millions of Windows computers (Microsoft’s operating system) and that it would change the way it handles updates in the future.
“Due to a bug in the validation program, one of the two updates was validated even though it contained problematic data”CrowdStrike explained. CrowdStrike’s Falcon software is used by companies around the world to better identify and respond to malware and security vulnerabilities. The company regularly makes these types of updates, but will now roll them out gradually, so that issues can be detected before they become widespread.
Microsoft said around 8.5 million devices were affected by the outage, with users experiencing “blue screens of death” that made restarting impossible. CrowdStrike confirmed the figure on Monday and warned its customers that malicious actors were trying to take advantage of the situation. Many large organizations and businesses have been affected, including airlines, hospitals, factories and hotels.
