Believe it or not, it’s been ten days since some of the world’s largest companies were crippled by a global computer glitch.
The issue was caused by a faulty software update from third-party cybersecurity company CrowdStrike. Microsoft also faced criticism for the outage, as all affected devices were Windows-based PCs.
in a new Blog article Over the weekend, Microsoft shared its analysis of the CrowdStrike situation and provided solutions to ensure an outage of this magnitude never happens again.
However, as noted, there is an interesting message in the blog post Technology RadarMicrosoft claims to have reported a huge number of affected devices underestimated.
CrowdStrike outage affects more devices than originally reported
One day, after CrowdStrike went down, Microsoft report 8.5 million Windows computers are affected by a software update bug from a cybersecurity company.
Mix and match speed of light
Now, Microsoft says in its latest update that the 8.5 million figure is just a small “subset” of the actual affected devices. Microsoft did not disclose the actual estimated number of affected Windows devices. However, it’s apparently millions more than previously revealed.
According to Microsoft, the 8.5 million numbers shared were from devices that shared crash reports with the company. Crash reporting is an optional feature that automatically lets Microsoft know when your system encounters an error. If a consumer or company decides not to share a crash report with Microsoft, the company will not be notified of this issue. Therefore, they are not included in estimates of affected devices.
While most of the millions of Microsoft computers have now been fixed, the industry is still figuring out how to allow this to happen.
Microsoft’s next steps
The reason why the CrowdStrike update error causes so much damage is because it runs at the core level, which is the core part of the operating system. That’s why when an update error occurs, it doesn’t just affect CrowdStrike’s software. It also brings down the entire computer system, leading to the dreaded Windows Blue Screen of Death.
Microsoft explained in its post why cybersecurity software prefers to run at the core level, but it’s clear that approach needs to be rethought after recent failures.
According to Microsoft, the company is currently considering “reducing the need for core drivers to access critical security information.” In addition to this, the company will also work with third-party vendors to ensure they follow best practices when rolling out updates. So that they can detect issues before they go live.
according to mass strikeAs of last Thursday, 97% of affected devices were back online.
