Crowdstrike Global IT SNAFU July 19, 2024

Quick field report from London.
No problems with Air Traffic Control.
""We have met the enemy, and he is us". Pogo

[NelsonBrown]

To err is human. To really F things up you need computers.

[keithstone]

We finally got to experience what everyone thought Y2K was going to be like.

[douglasc]

The irony of the fact that the name of the company responsible for this mayhem is "Crowdstrike", is astounding.

[BrianDoherty-es]

I didn't know Homer Simpson had moved from the nuclear power industry to the computer field.

[MikeCK]

The CEO of CrowdStrike is George Kurtz. In 2010 he was CTO of McAfee when a virus database update wiped out svchost.exe on Windows XP PCs, causing blue screens all over the world. That incident, according to Wikipedia, is what inspired him to leave McAfee and found CrowdStrike.

[ComputerGeeks-R-Us]

I've been up all night and am still working this issue. We had to cancel all elective surgeries today. When you delegate responsibility for your infrastructure to a vendor in the cloud, you suffer the consequences of their mistakes. When the systems are encrypted and won't boot, you tell me how easy that is to fix.

[rodeleon]

as an IT guy for 40+ years, i can say that many times the systems and applications that you put in place to prevent problems are in fact the things that cause the problems. this is due to the level of access that these systems require and the amount of resources they consume both locally and on the network. we used to call it "monitoring your systems to death". but i am retired now and can go to bed on time and sleep all night and get up in the morning and walk outside and sit on the porch in the sun and drink my coffee while reading about all the chaos that i no longer need to deal with. hell yeah.

[doctorscoot]

Over here in Aussie, it smashed us in our Friday afternoon peak! In our IT serious incident chat I could see people posting the blue screens of death that various machines were showing and my housemate burst into my office and told me that it was Crowdstrike — their company (finance) was down too. So I had to inform the chat. We couldn’t get flight plans uploaded so that resulted in a ground stop. A goddamn mess. We have a charter business (as well as regular RPT) that flies into many REMOTE airports for mining companies and related which now have stuffed computers, it will take DAYS to get IT support people into these places to get the computers fixed. 😬 At least our big hub ports are back up and running but now of course we have a massive backlog of upset and disrupted passengers.

It was somewhat amusing watching all the euros and yanks waking up and being all “what’s going on?” 😮

My flatmate was up quite late restoring their company’s services.

Bad day to be a windows admin! Luckily all my systems run on Linux/Kubernetes.

[deathk]

The problem with so many companies and industries around the world relying on the same product for their "cyber security".

[gsaunds]

"Hold at Bovington." I retired from AAL in 2002 - I see that's one thing that hasn't changed going into Heathrow!

[jrry]

Thanks Juan for all the energy and effort you exert to keep us informed.

[dblcab]

Thank you Juan. As always a neat short no fluff news article. Thank you.

[CAAPat]

Yet another amazing, timely and accurate video explanation! Thank you, Juan, for your dedication to public awareness and safety.

[robertonly]

Greetings all. I worked in IT security infrastructure for decades. The industry has been replacing human analysis from the equation for a while now with cloud based technology (now marketed as 'AI' enabled for an investment sound bite). It all started with overseas outsourcing. It was bad crossing the communication divide with language but trust in 'AI' is absolute rubbish. This level of fail should never be possible no matter the excuse...well intentioned, accidental or malicious.

[IncorrigibleBigotry]

I've been subscribed to this channel for around half a year - I had no idea Juan was an airline pilot. This man just keeps on impressing me.

[AKATEATime]

Thanks for the astounding visual. 👍 I just finally got home after a long Friday and a Saturday cleaning up the mess this made at my job. Unfortunately, most every computer needed to be touched, and there are some stragglers that we'll have to get on Monday because some areas aren't accessible on the weekend. Because of how early on in the boot process it crashes Windows, the chance of it being able to fix itself is extremely low.

[BluefearHere]

Juan Browne coming in with the most factual and punchy report ive heard on the issue all day! Keep em coming sir!

[christianpetersen]

Hi Juan, a very warm welcome to London. If we had known you were coming we would have baked you a cake.

[changefromabill]

Fun fact-o-the day... The blancolirio affiliate office in Tucumcari offers guided tours on Tuesdays and Thursdays. ALWAYS opt for the Thurs reservation! Same $29.95 cost, but at the end where you see Juan's private parking spot they let you reach in a jar and grab a free pickled pig foot!

[LuciFeric]

Society is so damn vulnerable. The tech geniuses have built a tower of cards