CrowdStrike Promises to Improve Testing After IT Outages

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Airline passengers around the world were caught in a major IT outage on Friday.

CrowdStrike has pledged to improve the way it tests its software after a flaw in a content update for Windows systems caused a major global IT outage on Friday.

The cybersecurity firm's mistake caused millions of computers to experience the “blue screen of death” and caused problems for banks, hospitals and airlines.

In a detailed investigation report into the incident published on Wednesday, CrowdStrike said the issue was caused by a “bug” in its system for checking whether software updates were working properly.

The glitch meant that the system was unable to identify “problematic content data” within the files.

The company said it could prevent a recurrence of the incident through increased testing and checking of software, including increased oversight by developers.

The flawed update crashed 8.5 million Microsoft Windows computers worldwide, and CrowdStrike president George Kurtz apologized for the impact of the outage.

But cybersecurity experts told BBC News that the investigation revealed the company had made “serious mistakes”.

“The post-mortem investigation revealed that no adequate measures appear to have been put in place to prevent this type of incident or to mitigate the risk of it occurring,” said cybersecurity consultant Daniel Card.

EPA

Travelers around the world were affected by the power outage and thousands of flights were cancelled.

Cybersecurity researcher Kevin Beaumont agreed, saying a key lesson from the CrowdStrike investigation is that the company “doesn't incrementally test.”

“They rolled it out to all customers at once in what they called a 'rapid response update,' which was clearly a huge mistake,” he said.

However, Sam Kirkman, from cybersecurity firm NetSPI, told the BBC that their investigation showed CrowdStrike had “taken steps” to prevent the outage.

He said those measures “likely would have been effective in preventing countless incidents even before last week.”

Parliament

The top 500 U.S. companies by revenue, excluding Microsoft, faced financial losses of about $5.4 billion ($4.1 billion) because of the outage, according to insurance company Parametrics.

The company said only $540 million ($418 million) to $1.08 billion ($840 million) of those losses were covered by insurance.

The U.S. government also launched an investigation into Delta Airlines' handling of the blackout after the company continued to cancel hundreds of flights.

“The worst of the impact of the CrowdStrike disruption has clearly passed,” Delta Air Lines Chief Executive Officer Ed Bastian said in a letter to customers on Wednesday, and he expects the airline to be fully restored by Thursday.

Meanwhile, Kurtz has been called to testify before Congress about the blackouts.

“This incident should serve as a broader warning about the national security risks associated with network dependency,” the House Homeland Security Committee wrote.

The government has given cybersecurity companies until Wednesday evening to respond and schedule a hearing.

Additional reporting by Joe Tiddy

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