A major Microsoft Windows outage that destroyed computers around the world early Friday caused flight cancellations and delays and hampered judicial and government purposes in the Bay Area.
Shortly after 2 a. m. m. PT on Friday, a cybersecurity company called CrowdStrike released a software update for a product called Falcon, causing countless consumer computers and servers running Windows to crash.
“It’s called the ‘blue screen of death,'” said Levent Ertaul, a cybersecurity expert and chair of the computer science branch at California State University, East Bay. “We suddenly believe that all the computers, servers and Windows consumer computers of giant corporations were supplied with this screen. This includes hospitals, airports, 911 calls, courthouses, schools, banks, public transportation, etc. “
CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz posted a statement on social media around 2:45 a. m. M. , saying that the failure was not due to a cyberattack and that the factor was “identified, isolated and a solution has been implemented”.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said his company is collaborating with CrowdStrike to help consumers with “advice and support. “
However, on Friday morning, organizations and public services in the Bay Area reported varying degrees of disruption due to the error.
For example, a spokesperson for San Francisco International Airport said that although all of its systems were back up and running, residual effects resulted in 87 flight cancellations and 196 flight delays.
In addition, court hearings were hampered in at least two Bay Area counties, but court hearings and other hearings were not canceled.
In Santa Clara County, IT teams worked through the night to get computers running in courtrooms, security and safety systems, and the court clerk’s request window.
An Alameda County Courts spokesperson said other people were required to attend their court appearances despite the computer outage, which primarily destroyed case management systems and dozens of individual computers.
“We are working diligently to fix our systems,” said Chief Justice Thomas Nixon. “Our committed staff, from our data generation workplace to our clerks, will continue to ensure our network reaches the courts. “
Several municipalities and counties also worked to maintain the formula on Friday, adding Contra Costa County, which reported problems with its business operations, remote and library services.
“We are racing to minimize those effects while CrowdStrike resolves its broader safety concerns,” the county said Friday morning on social media.
The alarm also affected Monterey County, which has since resolved the factor in several central systems, including that of the county’s main hospital.
“Natividad Medical Center experienced minor outages early in the morning on Friday, July 19. However, those issues were temporarily resolved and all workstations are operating normally,” county officials said in a news release. “Hospital operations continue uninterrupted and patient care remains uncompromising. “
Oakland city officials said “a lot of computers” were down but 911 service was operational.
Nationwide, the U. S. Social Security Administration said all of its offices would remain closed Friday due to the software outage, but others can still use its phone line at (800) 772-1213 or at www. ssa. gov.
Ertaul said cloud computing applications and servers will likely be restored sooner than consumer PCs, as PCs will need to be dealt with separately and on the user through IT professionals.
He also said the world is bracing for similar technological implosions in the future.
“It shows us two very vital things: first, how dependent we are on the generation and, second, how fragile that dependence is. These are the classes we want to learn,” Ertaul said. Things are becoming too complex and unwieldy. “, and I think we’ll be prepared for this kind of challenge in the future. “
Moreover, even if the major Windows outage is the result of a cyberattack, it could lead to security breaches in large computer networks.
“Does this create a weakness in the overall security perimeter?You can just exploit that downtime when it comes to safety,” Ertaul said.
“What struck me was the fragility of our systems,” UC Berkeley professor Shankar Sastry told KPIX.
“In a broader context, we have been able to isolate and even compartmentalize the damage. But the damage, you know, spread all over the world. “
Sastry said errors can happen, and that’s the reason for “sandboxing,” or testing a software update in a confined environment, especially anything used at this scale.
“But to have a bad setup that went undetected is mind-boggling to me,” Sastry added.
“Didn’t you apply the update to the device before shipping it worldwide?”Ertaul asked. There is a surprise factor. It shows us how interconnected and complex our IT systems are right now. They are vulnerable. That’s very important. They are vulnerable to error. “
It is a vulnerability that is now built into the very systems we have and take for granted, until they fail.
“Unfortunately, this is our life,” Ertaul said of the situation. “We’ll see those things more in the future. Because things are more complex and more interconnected. “
“The number of incidents is going to increase,” Sastry predicts. “It is the seriousness of the incident that we have to address. “
Sastry said the drop is a sign that technology makers have prioritized speed and convenience over resilience, and that would likely want to change.
“It’s really, on that scale, a real wake-up call for us,” Sastry said.