CrowdStrike-Microsoft Outage: Complete Coverage

A defective software update from cybersecurity vendor CrowdStrike caused a Microsoft outage Friday and led to massive impacts to flights, medical services, 911 and other systems globally. The recovery process has now begun, amid impacts that one analyst said are unprecedented from a tech outage.

Bookmark this page for full coverage from CRN, including award-winning analysis and the outage’s impact on the channel and MSPs.

Microsoft: Delta Likely Refused Help Because Of Outdated IT Systems
In a letter sent to Delta, Microsoft echoes claims by CrowdStrike that Delta ignored offers to help with recovery from the July 19 outage.

CrowdStrike: More Testing, Staged Rollouts Now In Place For Updates
The cybersecurity vendor released its technical root cause analysis for the faulty July 19 update that caused a massive Windows outage.

CrowdStrike Pushes Back Against Delta Legal Threats Over Outage
The cybersecurity vendor says Delta did not accept offers of help amid the multi-day outage that impacted the airline.

Analysis: Does Delta’s CEO Have A Point About The CrowdStrike-Microsoft Rivalry?
Comments from Delta CEO Ed Bastian this week seem to allege that the co-opetition between CrowdStrike and Microsoft may have played a role in the massive July 19 outage.

CrowdStrike Outage Fallout: 5 New Developments
Matters related to the widely felt July 19 outage have begun shifting into the legal sphere this week.

CrowdStrike Says 99 Percent Of Windows Sensors Now Online
The cybersecurity giant reported the recovery progress after the massive July 19 outage caused by its faulty update.

CrowdStrike Unlikely To Be Liable In Potential Delta Suit Over $500M Outage Loss: Analyst
However, additional companies beyond Delta can be expected to consider legal action against CrowdStrike over the massive July 19 outage, according to a Wall Street analyst.

SentinelOne CEO On CrowdStrike Outage: ‘Not Just An Honest Mistake’
In an interview with CRN, SentinelOne CEO Tomer Weingarten says the massive outage was the result of a ‘very risky architecture.’

CrowdStrike: Microsoft’s Windows Kernel Update Process ‘Was Followed’
In a statement responding to CRN’s interview with SentinelOne CEO Tomer Weingarten, CrowdStrike says that its July 19 update did not bypass Microsoft’s ‘clear kernel review process.’

CrowdStrike Will Take Hit From Outage But ‘Limit’ Longer-Term Damage: Analyst
Morgan Stanley has checked with CrowdStrike partners and is now ‘slightly more’ confident in the vendor’s recovery despite short-term impacts to recurring revenue.

Microsoft: Windows ‘Clearly’ Needs Better Resilience After CrowdStrike Outage
‘This incident shows clearly that Windows must prioritize change and innovation in the area of end-to-end resilience,’ a Microsoft executive says in a blog.

SentinelOne CEO: Cybersecurity Shouldn’t Require Constant Updates
In the wake of the CrowdStrike outage, SentinelOne CEO Tomer Weingarten tells CRN that the frequency of updates from the vendor ‘calls into question pretty much the entire premise of next-generation protection.’

CrowdStrike CEO Kurtz: 97 Percent Of Windows Sensors ‘Back Online’ After Outage
‘This progress is thanks to the tireless efforts of our customers, partners, and the dedication of our team at CrowdStrike,’ CEO George Kurtz says in a LinkedIn post Thursday.

Partners: CrowdStrike Will Recover Its Reputation After Historic Outage
While it may take time, CrowdStrike is likely to restore the confidence of customers, solution providers tell CRN.

CrowdStrike-Microsoft Outage To Cost $44M Per Fortune 500 Company: Report
New data from cloud insurance firm Parametrix sheds light on the financial cost of the massive CrowdStrike outage last week that affected millions of Microsoft devices.

Partners: CrowdStrike Will Recover Its Reputation After Historic Outage
While it may take time, CrowdStrike is likely to restore the confidence of customers, solution providers tell CRN.

Nerdio CEO Says Virtualization Tools Helped Customers Navigate CrowdStrike Crisis
‘It reinforced that [Desktop-as-a-Service] technology has its benefits to quickly recover from situations like this,’ says Nerdio co-founder and CEO Vadim Vladimirskiy.

Analysis: Was A Global IT Outage Inevitable?
Unless there’s a concerted effort by a lot more tech industry vendors than just CrowdStrike, it’s unlikely to be the last incident of this kind.

CrowdStrike And Communication: Example Of Inclusive Leadership Strategies In Action
As the real-life impact of the CrowdStrike and Microsoft outage continues to unfold, one thing is clear: building crisis communication strategies is an essential part of leadership. It’s a step that happens well before challenges become public.

The CrowdStrike-Microsoft Outage Is Likely To Curtail Auto-Updates. That May Not Be A Good Thing.
If customers opt to forgo automatic security updates going forward to ensure greater testing, the ‘whole IT environment is exposed’ during that testing period, a CrowdStrike partner tells CRN.

CrowdStrike Says Bug In Validation Process Led To Massive Outage
A bug in CrowdStrike’s content approval system ‘passed validation despite containing problematic content data,’ leading to the outage that caused global disruptions.

CrowdStrike-Microsoft Outage: 5 Things To Watch For
Many questions remain about the ultimate cause of the outage and the impact it will have on CrowdStrike going forward.

CrowdStrike Outage: A ‘Great Company’ That Was ‘Trying To Do The Right Thing’
As one partner tells CRN, the CrowdStrike update that led to a global IT outage was meant to protect against new hacker techniques—and wasn’t merely a new software feature update.

CrowdStrike Chief Security Officer: ‘To Say We’re Devastated Is A Huge Understatement’
‘We let down the very people we committed to protect,’ wrote Shawn Henry, longtime CSO at CrowdStrike, in a LinkedIn post.

CrowdStrike Shares Continue To Tumble As Outage Drags On
A pair of downgrades from Wall Street analysts and ongoing disruptions to flights weighed on the cybersecurity vendor’s stock price Monday.

‘CrowdStrike Phishing Emails To Get Worse Before Better’: HacWare CEO
‘Over the weekend, we saw about 50 new email domains that were purchased by cybercriminals to impersonate CrowdStrike,’ HacWare CEO Tiffany Ricks tells CRN.

CrowdStrike-Microsoft Outage: 5 Key Updates To Know
Flight cancellations continued through the weekend while the two vendors sought to help expedite the recovery process for the millions of affected Windows devices.

Microsoft Launches Windows Recovery Tool For CrowdStrike Outage
‘As a follow-up to the CrowdStrike Falcon agent issue impacting Windows clients and servers, Microsoft has released an updated recovery tool with two repair options to help IT admins expedite the repair process,’ Microsoft says.

Microsoft: CrowdStrike Update Caused Outage For 8.5 Million Windows Devices
Major airlines reported progress on recovery from the outage Saturday.

CrowdStrike Pins Massive Microsoft Outage On ‘Logic Error’ In Falcon Update
It remains unclear exactly why the hugely disruptive error occurred, the company says—especially given that such updates are very common.

CrowdStrike Has Been Doing Updates This Way ‘For Many Years’: What Went Wrong?
With a potentially lengthy recovery ahead, the defective CrowdStrike update that led to an unprecedented worldwide Microsoft outage will ultimately raise questions about the automatic update process for cybersecurity tools.

Analysis: CrowdStrike Isn’t The Only One To Blame Here
Amid fallout from a massive worldwide outage, CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz noted that keeping up with hackers requires frequent updates to security tools -- and sometimes, something breaks.

Why CrowdStrike Update Caused Unprecedented Microsoft Outage: ThreatLocker CEO
Danny Jenkins -- whose company, ThreatLocker, secures the unaffected JetBlue Airways -- tells CRN that the seemingly minor nature of the CrowdStrike update was responsible for the sudden widespread impact.

CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz: ‘We’re Deeply Sorry’ For Massive Disruptions
In terms of recovering from the outage, ‘it could be some time for some systems that just won’t automatically recover,’ Kurtz said in a televised interview.

MSPs Rally To Help Amid CrowdStrike-Microsoft Outage: ‘That’s Why We’re Here’
‘We’re helping by offering community support, helping with recovery plans, offering up our staff to augment the MSSPs and helping wherever we can,’ says Marc Menzies, president and CTO of Overview Technology Solutions. ‘We’re saying, “Hey, I know that everyone’s morning is messed up, ours is now messed up too but we’re here to help and support you guys. We know if the shoe was on the other foot, we know they’d drop things to help us.’

CrowdStrike’s Stock Plummets After Outage But Is Rebounding
Following a CrowdStrike error that caused global IT problems for millions of people, CrowdStrike’s stock is not showing signs of being impacted.

5 Things To Know On The CrowdStrike-Microsoft Outage
CrowdStrike says that it has deployed a fix after a defective software update led to widespread outages and massive real-world impacts to flights, health-care services and 911 systems.

CrowdStrike Falcon Issue ‘Fix Has Been Deployed;’ Microsoft Identifies ‘Root Cause’ Of Outage
The massive Microsoft Azure and CrowdStrike outage reportedly was caused by a recent update to CrowdStrike Falcon Sensor software. Here’s where everything stands as of Friday morning.