Global CrowdStrike Outage: Key Response Steps

On July 19, 2024, a defective update to CrowdStrike’s Falcon software began causing Windows hosts to crash, with symptoms including bug check and blue screen errors that prevent users from booting into the OS. The impact of this service outage has been widespread, affecting hospitals, airports, border control, banks, and vast numbers of users and companies worldwide. This article reviews four tactical steps IT leaders should take immediately as well as some preventative measures they should implement to reduce the impact of similar incidents in the future.