Crowdstrike Update Disrupts Windows 10 Users & Businesses Globally

Windows 10 users and businesses worldwide are experiencing widespread outages after a recent update from cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike. Reports indicate the issues began after Crowdstrike released a new version of its Falcon sensor software that many organisations use for endpoint protection.

Since the update was rolled out, users have reported seeing the infamous "Blue Screen of Death" error message across many sectors. Airlines, banks, media companies, government offices and other businesses have been impacted. UK broadcaster Sky News was unable to broadcast live due to the outages.

In India, airport check-in systems went down, bringing operations to a standstill. Delhi Airport also reported service disruptions, with many passengers receiving handwritten boarding passes.

On social media, frustrated users shared screenshots of their PCs stuck on the Windows recovery screen after repeatedly trying to restart.

Crowdstrike acknowledged the issue in a support document, linking the crashes to problems with its Falcon sensor. Users in the US, UK, Australia and New Zealand said banking services, media studios, radio stations, and more had issues.

While the fault was initially blamed on Microsoft, it appears to have been caused by Crowdstrike's recent software update breaking the csagent.sys.

As businesses worldwide work to resolve issues, it remains unclear what specifically in the Crowdstrike update triggered such widespread crashes.

Crowdstrike CEO George Kurtz issued a statement on X stating that, "CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts. Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted. This is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed. We refer customers to the support portal for the latest updates and will continue to provide complete and continuous updates on our website. We further recommend organizations ensure they’re communicating with CrowdStrike representatives through official channels. Our team is fully mobilized to ensure the security and stability of CrowdStrike customers."