Widespread “IT Outages” Reported Across the Globe

[Midnight]

From what I understand, this was all done with just the flick of a switch. I wonder if TPTB will shut off all communications at the time of the rapture. 


Widespread “IT Outages” Reported Across the Globe – Major US Airlines Ground All Flights – 911, Emergency Systems Affected

By Brian Lupo Jul. 19, 2024 7:15 am


Major “IT outages” are being reported across the world, affecting banking systems, emergency services and airlines’ communications. The FAA website currently shows seven airports closed, including LaGuardia International in New York City, Logan International in Boston, and Harry Reid in Las Vegas.



The groundings and closures are expected to last until at least 5am EST and are “Due to Airline Request.”



OUTAGES



– Biggest IT outage ever according to experts



– Major banks, media, airports and airlines affected by major IT outage



– Rail services disrupted in parts of US and UK



– Payment systems impacted in different parts of the world, including Australia and the UK.



-…



— The Spectator Index (@spectatorindex) July 19, 2024



Microsoft systems are reportedly getting the “Blue Screen of Death” and seem to have occurred after a “faulty update” from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, which is widely used on Microsoft system according to The Verge.



Microsoft Azure issued a “Do-It-Yourself” fix on their website:



We have been made aware of an issue impacting Virtual Machines running Windows Client and Windows Server, running the CrowdStrike Falcon agent, which may encounter a bug check (BSOD) and get stuck in a restarting state. We approximate impact started around 19:00 UTC on the 18th of July.



We recommend customers that are able to, to restore from a backup from before 19:00 UTC on the 18th of July.



According to the Alaska State Troopers Facebook page, Alaska is experiencing a “technology-related outage” across the state.







AZ Central is reporting 911 and other emergency systems are being impacted by the outage as well.



Palm Beach County 911 systems are experiencing outages due to a “technical issue.”



Hospitals systems across the globe are affected by this outage and reports are flooding in on social media platforms of entire hospital networks losing their communications.

link

[ExquisiteGerbil]

CrowdStrike Crash Raises Questions About Tech Dependency

AFP19 Jul 2024

Catastrophic computer outages caused by a software update from one company have once again exposed the dangers of global technological dependence on a handful of players, experts warned on Friday.



A flawed update sent out by the little-known security firm CrowdStrike brought airlines, TV stations, and myriad other aspects of daily life to a standstill.



The outages affected companies or individuals that use CrowdStrike on the Microsoft Windows platform: when they applied the update, the incompatible software crashed computers into a frozen state known as the “Blue Screen of Death.”



“Today CrowdStrike has become a household name, but not in a good way, and this will take time to settle down,” said Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities.



The breakdown quickly fueled discussions about internet giants’ power over the increasingly digital world economy, with more activity now taking place in the computing “cloud” or on a few apps or platforms.



Just “a Taste”

When those platforms have flaws — or are deliberately attacked — the world seems to collapse.



In recent months, entire healthcare systems and industries have been paralyzed after hackers infiltrated their systems, leaving consumers at their wits’ end and companies at a loss.



“I think we’re just getting a taste of some potential effects of real reliance by the financial sector and sectors across the economy on a handful of cloud companies and other key systems,” Rohit Chopra, director of the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, told CNBC.



“There are just a handful of big cloud companies where so much of the economy is now resting.”



The world has seen a major shift to cloud computing, where companies use servers offered by big tech giants for their computing needs instead of their own infrastructure.



Amazon, through its AWS company, is the world leader, followed by Microsoft’s Azure and Google Cloud.



Friday’s breakdown was caused by a malfunctioning software update fed to Microsoft Windows users by CrowdStrike, which specializes in cybersecurity for cloud-based companies.



“We’re deeply sorry for the impact we’ve caused to customers, travelers, and anyone affected by this,” CrowdStrike CEO Kurtz said in an interview on NBC’s “Today” show.



Microsoft blamed the problems on CrowdStrike, but industry insiders warned that the issue stems from entrusting the digital world to just a few key companies.



“It’s going to continue to raise issues for systems or businesses wholly dependent on Microsoft -– this issue of concentration risk,” Michael Daniel, former White House cybersecurity coordinator and current head of the Cyber Threat Alliance told AFP.



“How do you balance the benefits of having everybody on the same operating system with the concentration risk that poses?”



Callie Guenther, senior manager of cyber threat research at Critical Start, warned that the shift to big players amplifies the impact of any system failure or vulnerability.



One error, like CrowdStrike’s on Friday, threatens society’s smooth functioning worldwide, she said.



No Contingency Plan

Andrius Minkevicius, co-founder of Cyber Upgrade, a cybersecurity company, said that businesses must fight the complacency often associated with outsourcing technology to the big vendors.



“Today, we’re seeing an example of those who relied mostly on vendor-offered cyber protection without additional contingency plans and are now suffering reputational and financial damage,” he said.



Experts warn that this incident will likely invite scrutiny from regulators and officials.



“CrowdStrike will probably have to let some outside people come in and examine how this happened,” said Cyber Threat Alliance’s Daniel.

link

[maybetoday]

Widespread CrowdStrike “Outages” Explained – Possible Election Implications

By Brian Lupo
Jul. 19, 2024 4:00 pm

In the early hours of Friday morning, not long after President Trump concluded his speech at the RNC Convention, news began to pour out on social media about “IT outages” across not just the country, but the globe. Major US airlines Delta, American Airlines and United Air grounded flights. As of this writing, Delta has resumed “some flight departures,” while American Airlines and United Airlines have said they’ve resumed normal operations, but expect delays.



While the airlines seem to be operating at normal or somewhat normal capacity, the FAA’s National Airspace System Status has added to their list of impacted airports. This list is subject to change.



The “outages” have impacted banks, hospitals, police and emergency services, media, among others.



The source of the problem has been identified by CrowdStrike as having to do with the Falcon platform. Crowdstrike is a cybersecurity company who was a critical component in the Democrat-led and Democrat-funded “Russia Hoax.”



CrowdStrike put out a statement on their website:



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 was not a 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.


CrowdStrike, who’s website proclaims them “Cybersecurity’s AI-Native Platform for the XDR Era-We Stop Breaches,” stated they identified the problematic file, singular, and offer several solutions to remedy the problem, including creating a back-up of the disk volume before proceeding.



Mark Cook is a computer expert who has been investigating election machines, infrastructure and procedures since the 2020 Election. On his website, HandCountRoadShow.org, he offered an explanation in layman’s terms, describing the Falcon Platform’s “Falcon Sensor” as a “part of their Cloud-based endpoint protection platform”:



Think of Endpoint Protection as a firewall on each device that is part of a network. The ‘cloud’ part of it is similar to a conductor in a orchestra, with the endpoints being those playing the instruments, and the instruments are the individual computers/servers.



According to Cook, the “Blue Screen of Death” experienced globally after the “outage” is caused by an update that conflicted with Microsoft Windows, causing machines to get “stuck during reboot,” preventing them from loading the operation software.



In terms of potential impact on our election, Cook writes:



The idiots that implemented our cloud-based voter registration and poll-book systems have created a HUGE abuse vector in our election ecosystem and I’d be shocked if those election systems weren’t also affected by this. And there is nothing that can prevent their being another accidental (or intentional) abuse! Have you considered that this may just be cover for an election hack just prior to/during an election? It would be perfect cover.



He notes in his article a post on X from Katie Hobbs of Arizona regarding the impacts on Arizona, while Maricopa County Elections put out a similar statement that some voting locations have been impacted. Arizona’s primary elections are on July 30th, but, lets be real, its now “Election Month”, not “Election Day,” so of course early voting begins 28 days prior to the 30th.

Cook offers his advice on how to fix these systems as well. And it is a little more concerning than the watered-down version mentioned earlier:



The affected file in the update is a particular ‘driver’ that was updated. A ‘driver’ is a program that runs on the computer that performs a task. This driver is the Falcon driver. To repair it, the affected ‘driver’ must be removed in order to allow the operating system to boot up, then the new fixed version of the driver must be installed. The huge complication here is that the driver must be removed MANUALLY. A further complication is for servers that have encrypted hard drives because extra steps must be performed to decrypt the hard drive in order for the repair to be implemented. For companies that didn’t follow best-practices on their encryption passwords, their systems will be permanently locked out and unrecoverable.



Cook goes on to list a step-by-step for remedying the problem on his website.

link

[ExquisiteGerbil]

Major IT outage shows hackers ‘how easily’ Australia’s systems can be brought down






‘Everything is interconnected’: Outages like CrowdStrike’s can happen again






Global IT outage sparks concerns over whether ‘machines will take over’






CrowdStrike outage has a ‘knock-on effect’ on IT systems

[Midnight]

Here's what REAL people are saying about the MASSIVE IT outage!

[ExquisiteGerbil]

Concerns raised over global tech reliance after CrowdStrike disrupted the world

[ExquisiteGerbil]

Expert reveals why CrowdStrike outage affected the world on such a large scale