On Friday, millions of Windows machines were affected by the dreaded blue screen of death (BSOD), highlighting a significant vulnerability in Microsoft’s desktop operating system.
According to Microsoft, 8.5 million Windows PCs were affected by the incident, accounting for less than 1% of its global user base. Despite this seemingly small percentage, the impact was substantial, bringing operations in sectors like healthcare, media, and restaurants to a standstill.
The effects were particularly pronounced in the aviation industry, with U.S. airlines canceling close to 2,000 flights on Saturday, following 3,400 cancellations on Friday.
The widespread outage was traced back to a faulty update from CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm known for its Falcon security software. The update caused Falcon to malfunction at the kernel level of Windows, leading to the catastrophic BSOD on millions of machines.
CrowdStrike’s CEO promptly took responsibility for the issue and assured customers that efforts were underway to restore normal operations.
Despite this, many users were left with malfunctioning PCs while competitors like Apple’s Mac and Google’s Chromebooks continued to operate without issues.
As noted by The Wall Street Journal in a lengthy article, this incident underscores a longstanding issue with Microsoft’s Windows operating system. The open design of Windows, which allows developers extensive access to the system’s core functionalities, can lead to severe consequences when things go wrong.
In contrast, Apple’s closed ecosystem maintains stricter controls, ensuring better security and stability.
Amit Yoran, CEO of cybersecurity firm Tenable, highlighted the difference, noting that Apple’s stringent security practices and mandatory updates contribute to a healthier ecosystem
Security experts argue that Microsoft’s shift towards cloud computing has led to a neglect of traditional products like Windows and its associated services. Microsoft’s corporate vice president, Pavan Davuluri, defended the company’s move to the cloud, citing improved reliability through constant updates.
However, he acknowledged the unique challenges of supporting a diverse customer base that includes many using outdated hardware and software.
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I read that Crowdstrike pushed the update on a Friday. Whoever in charge should know better to not push out update on Friday when most of staff are gone over the weekend.
Team pushing updates are usually based in India on a 24 hours rotation. There is always staff and updates are always off peak usage.
Can similar mistake pushed to Mac and Linux too?
No because Apple does not allow access to the kernel anymore
And how about Linux, do you know?
Just like the guy said below, pushing updates on a Friday before a weekend is insanity at best. Updates are best performed Monday evening after 8-4 work hours, so that by Tuesday the teams are in the office and ready to deploy instantaneously if there is an issue. For example, Blizzard Entertainment performs their World of Warcraft server & client updates on Tuesdays, and has done so since November 2004.
Rogers Wireless right here in Canada, pushed their update in the wee hours of an early Friday morning which resulted in cellular and Internet being down for Rogers customers for nearly an entire 24 hour period. Backup systems failed as firmware had been updated rendering backups useless. The same stupid issue that IT staff could have easily prevented by properly testing and by issuing the update well in advance of a weekend.
8-4 in what time zone?