Windows TCO: Azure Outages, Bricked Windows, Ransomware, and Worse
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Tech Central (South Africa) ☛ CrowdStrike disaster offers a timely warning
In fact, Microsoft confirmed it experienced a cloud services outage in the central United States region, which began around 6pm Eastern Time (12pm SAST) on Thursday, 18 July 2024.
This outage affected a subset of customers using various Azure services. Azure is Microsoft’s proprietary cloud services platform.
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BIA Net ☛ Turkish Airlines cancels 84 flights due to global Microsoft outage
A significant IT outage has affected multiple businesses utilizing Microsoft's cloud services, following issues with the integration of CrowdStrike's Falcon agent. The disruption impacted Virtual Machines running Windows Client and Windows Server, causing widespread inconvenience.
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The Verge ☛ CrowdStrike has a new guidance hub for dealing with the Windows outage
CrowdStrike also published a blog yesterday warning that threat actors have been taking advantage of the situation to distribute malware, using “a malicious ZIP archive named crowdstrike-hotfix.zip.”
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JURIST ☛ Ransomware attack shuts down Los Angeles Superior Court systems
Upon detecting the ransomware attack, the Superior Court disabled its network systems to prevent further damage. The court released a statement confirming the breach and that multiple agencies, including the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, are investigating the incident and working to mitigate any damage.
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India Times ☛ Microsoft Outage: IT Ministry issues advisory, says problem related to recent update in product
The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) issued an advisory following disruptions at global and Indian airlines, banks, and other institutions due to a Microsoft products outage. A Crowdstrike update caused the issue, leading to system crashes. Microsoft has since resolved the issue. Electronics & Information Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw confirmed ongoing communication with Microsoft.
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The Register UK ☛ The non-IT impacts of CrowdStrike's bad patch on daily life
The issue at CrowdStrike that put millions of Windows systems into perpetual boot loops has been blamed on a faulty channel file, necessitating manual intervention by an IT professional to get each system back online.
And it's not like CrowdStrike is a niche product - according to the company's website, 298 of the Fortune 500, 43 out of 50 US states and eight of the top 10 food and beverage, auto, financial services and tech companies all use CrowdStrike products.
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India Times ☛ Australia warns of malicious websites after cyber outage
ASD issued a warning following CrowdStrike's global outage on Friday, affecting banks, airlines. Commonwealth Bank faced transfer issues, Qantas and Sydney airport had delays. Prime Minister Albanese assured no critical damage. Cyber Security Minister Clare O'Neil warned of scams. ASD advised using official CrowdStrike channels. CrowdStrike, valued at $83 billion, has 30,000 subscribers.
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VOA News ☛ Australia warns of 'malicious websites' after cyber outage
On Saturday, the Australian Signals Directorate — the country's cyber intelligence agency — said "a number of malicious websites and unofficial code are being released claiming to help entities recover from the widespread outages caused by the CrowdStrike technical incident."
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The Atlantic ☛ The CrowdStrike Failure Was a Warning
This was not, however, an unforeseeable freak accident, nor will it be the last of its kind. Instead, the devastation was the inevitable outcome of modern social systems that have been designed for hyper-connected optimization, not decentralized resilience. We have engineered a world in which tiny, localized errors can cause global crisis. This precarious state of affairs is by human design—and can therefore be undone. But we are currently speeding toward much greater calamities than the CrowdStrike debacle.