Microsoft has revealed that a faulty software update released by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike on July 18 has impacted approximately 8.5 million Windows devices globally, causing widespread disruptions to businesses and individuals.
The tech giant has worked closely with CrowdStrike, customers, and industry partners to resolve the issue and restore affected systems.
In a blog post, Microsoft stated that while the incident originated from CrowdStrike and not Microsoft itself, the company has taken proactive steps to support its customers and the broader ecosystem.
8.5 Million Windows Devices Crashed
Microsoft has deployed hundreds of engineers to work directly with affected businesses, collaborated with cloud providers like Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and Amazon Web Services (AWS), and provided technical guidance and manual remediation scripts to help customers safely bring their systems back online.
Microsoft said in a blog post, “We currently estimate that CrowdStrike’s update affected 8.5 million Windows devices, or less than one percent of all Windows machines.”
CrowdStrike has issued a public statement and recommended a workaround to address the problem. The cybersecurity firm has also assisted Microsoft in developing a scalable solution to accelerate the fix for the faulty update across Microsoft’s Azure infrastructure.
“This effort will be ongoing. We are committed to identifying any foundational or workflow improvements that we can make to strengthen our process. We will update our findings in the root cause analysis as the investigation progresses,” CrowdStrike said in a blog post“
Although the affected devices represent less than one percent of all Windows machines, the incident has had significant economic and societal impacts due to CrowdStrike’s prominence among enterprises running critical services. Microsoft emphasized the importance of safe deployment practices and disaster recovery mechanisms within the interconnected tech ecosystem.
“As we’ve seen over the last two days, we learn, recover and move forward most effectively when we collaborate and work together,” the blog post read. “We appreciate the cooperation and collaboration of our entire sector, and we will continue to update with learnings and next steps.”
Microsoft continues to work around the clock to support customers and provide updates through the Azure Status Dashboard. The company expects to share further insights and lessons learned from this incident to strengthen the resilience of the global technology ecosystem.
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