The Issue Affected Airports, TV Stations, FIs, Banks, Airlines Globally
FinTech BizNews Service
Mumbai, July 19, 2024: Windows users around the world are reporting that their computers are showing the operating system’s Blue Screen of Death. The issue has affected airports, television news stations, financial institutions (FIs), emergency services and many other industries and companies globally including the London Stock Exchange, Mumbai Airport, India and many other airlines.
Kumar Ritesh, CEO & Founder, CYFIRMA, and Srirang Srikantha, Founder & CEO, Yethi Consulting, provide important insight on the incident. Cyfirma was founded in 2017 by Kumar Ritesh, who specializes in cyber intel, dark web chatter and uncovering attacks being planned against India and companies. The platform collects intelligence from multiple hackers forum which are otherwise inaccessible and uncovers sinister plots being planned against legitimate companies: “The massive outage in Microsoft systems caused by CrowdStrike updates was due to a compatibility issue between CrowdStrike's Falcon sensor and a Windows update. When the CrowdStrike sensor, a critical endpoint protection agent, was updated, it conflicted with changes introduced in the latest Windows update. Such incidents underscore the importance of rigorous compatibility testing between security solutions and operating system updates to prevent widespread disruptions. There are measures that can be put in place to avoid such disruptions. Before deploying any security update or software patch, create a testing environment that mirrors production systems. Test the update thoroughly in this environment to identify any compatibility issues or unexpected behavior. Avoid deploying updates across all systems simultaneously. Instead, roll them out gradually to a subset of machines. Monitor these systems closely for any adverse effects. If everything looks good, proceed with a wider rollout. Regularly back up critical systems so that in case an update causes problems like the current situation with Crowdstrike updates, you can restore the system to a previous state. Ensure backups are tested and reliable. Use patch management tools to automate the deployment of updates. These tools allow you to schedule updates, track their status, and roll back changes if needed. We would always encourage organizations to implement monitoring solutions that detect anomalies, performance issues, or unexpected behavior. And set up alerts to notify you immediately if any critical system experiences problems.”
Srirang Srikantha, Founder & CEO, Yethi Consulting says "The outages represents how fragile and interconnected our systems are. Companies like MSFT have great practices, and the fact that a bug passes through its process is unfortunate. It reiterates the need for good practices of testing before releasing new software to production systems." Yethi Consulting Pvt Ltd is the leading provider of Payment Solutions, Quality Assurance, and Test automation solutions for the global banking and financial services sector.
