Investigation Report: CrowdStrike Uncovers Reasons Behind Worldwide System Failure
In a recent update, CrowdStrike Founder and CEO George Kurtz announced that approximately 99% of Windows sensors are now back online, following a global systems crash that occurred on July 19, 2024.
The incident was triggered by a content configuration update for the Windows sensor, released as part of regular operations by CrowdStrike. The system crash was caused by an out-of-bounds memory read, a bug that was confirmed to not be exploitable by a threat actor.
The root cause of the crash was detailed in a Root Cause Analysis (RCA) report, which CrowdStrike released following the incident. The report revealed that the systems crash was a result of a new sensor capability introduced by CrowdStrike in February 2024. This new capability pre-defined a set of fields for Rapid Response Content to gather data.
However, on July 19, 2024, a Rapid Response Content update caused a system crash due to a mismatch between the expected and provided input fields for the new sensor capability. Despite this, CrowdStrike, along with a third-party review, conducted an analysis of the system crash.
It's worth noting that in February 2024, CrowdStrike introduced this new sensor capability to enhance visibility into possible novel attack techniques. However, no search results indicate that any company has published a Root Cause Analysis report about a system crash on July 19, 2024, causing global outages or identifying the error source.
George Kurtz expressed gratitude for the efforts of customers, partners, and CrowdStrike teams in restoring systems following the crash. He also stated that CrowdStrike will not rest until all systems affected by the crash are restored.
In addition to restoring the systems, CrowdStrike is deploying process improvements and mitigation steps to ensure further enhanced resilience. On March 5, 2024, a Rapid Response Content update for Channel File 291 was released to production. The scenario with Channel File 291 is now incapable of recurring.
Three additional Rapid Response updates were deployed between April 8, 2024, and April 24, 2024, as part of CrowdStrike's efforts to prevent such incidents in the future. As of 8:00 p.m. EDT on July 29, 2024, approximately 99% of Windows sensors are back online, demonstrating CrowdStrike's commitment to resolving the issue and ensuring the continuity of its services.
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