Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike has issued a statement telling Microsoft users how to fix the blue screen error that is appearing following a major global IT outage.
The tech giant has been named in relation to an unprecedented outage impacting airports, news organisations, train lines and other big companies who use their system across the globe.
The IT issue has led to flights being grounded in the US, Australia and across Europe.
In the UK, train passengers have been warned of travel chaos during rush hour with several operators affected by ‘widespread IT issues’.
One of the country’s major TV channels, Sky News, was also off air on Friday.
CrowdStrike posted on X this morning acknowledging the outage and providing workaround steps.
Speaking exclusively to Metro.co.uk, Professor Alan Woodward, who is an internationally renowned computer security expert at the University of Surrey, said all signs point to the issue being caused by an update from the firm.
Prof Woodward said: ‘Based on what we know at the moment the main problem appears to be a result of an update by a product called Crowdstrike Falcon.
‘This is used to monitor the security of a large network PCs. To do that it downloads a piece of software called an “agent” to every machine. This monitors the PC and reports back problems.
‘This agent included a so called system file that means it is deeply embedded in the operating system. This update was corrupted in some way (we do not yet know what kind of error) so that as the PC tries to boot it comes across the corrupted file and can’t proceed – it puts up the so called Blue Screen of Death.
‘The product is used by large organisations that have significant numbers of PCs to ensure everything is monitored. Sadly if they lose all the PCs, they can’t operate or only at a much reduced service level.
‘The major frustration is that to fix the issue will require manual intervention on every affected PC. That will mean enormous delays in recovering and hence disruption for days to come.’
Prof Woodward said we can expert disruption in airports, railways, airlines, hospitals and a host of other institutions for days to come.
It raises questions about how such an update could be released without sufficient testing.
Prof Woodward added: ‘The scale of this is truly global and because of the way it is likely to be fixed (manually rather than remotely) the disruption could be several days.’
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