Four Winds Blog

CrowdStrike Windows Outage: What Happened and How to Respond

Written by Gleimi De Jesus | Jul 19, 2024 12:29:37 PM

In the world of cybersecurity, unexpected incidents can cause significant disruptions. Recently, a major incident involving CrowdStrike, a leading infosec vendor, led to widespread outages.

What Happened?

An update to CrowdStrike’s product caused computers running Windows to crash. The issue was widespread, with numerous accounts of Windows 10 PCs displaying the Blue Screen of Death and being unable to reboot. The culprit was identified as the csagent.sys file, which took down critical services.

Who Was Affected?

The issue was not limited to a specific demographic or region. It was a global problem affecting organizations and individuals using CrowdStrike’s Falcon Sensor on their Windows machines. The Falcon Sensor, designed to block attacks and detect threats quickly, ironically became the threat itself.

Workaround: A Temporary Fix

While CrowdStrike’s engineers are working on a permanent solution, a temporary workaround has been provided. Here are the steps to follow:

  1. Boot Windows into Safe Mode or Windows Recovery Environment (WRE).
  2. Navigate to C:\Windows\System32\drivers\CrowdStrike.
  3. Locate and delete the file matching C-00000291*.sys.
  4. Boot your system normally.

Please note that this is a temporary fix and may not work for everyone. We recommend keeping an eye on CrowdStrike’s official communications for updates on a permanent solution.

Conclusion 

In the face of such incidents, it’s crucial to stay informed and take necessary actions promptly. While the workaround provides temporary relief, it underscores the importance of robust, permanent solutions in cybersecurity. We at Four Winds IT are committed to keeping you updated on such developments and providing guidance to navigate through them.

Stay safe and secure in the digital world!

 

For more information ...

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