CrowdStrike bricks Windows computers, takes Sky News off air, grounds planes

Major outages reported worldwide across multiple industries as an update to cyber security firm CrowdStrike's platform goes dramatically wrong.

A fairly heady mix of banks, airlines and media outlets have all hit major issues as an update to CrowdStrike's antivirus services has gone wrong early this morning. Reports are coming in pretty much around the world from the US to New Zealand of problems with Windows machines as a result. There are problems at Melbourne Airport, one of the UK's rail companies has warned passengers to expect disruption  (well, more than usual to be honest), Teams and Microsoft365 are borked, blue screens of death abound, and Sky News amongst a whole host of other broadcasters has fallen off air.

It is quite the omnishambles. According to The Register, the issue is with CrowdStrike's Falcon Sensor.  

CrowdStrike's Brody Nisbet  posted the following on X:

There is a faulty channel file, so not quite an update. There is a workaround... 1. Boot Windows into Safe Mode or WRE. 2. Go to C:\Windows\System32\drivers\CrowdStrike 3. Locate and delete file matching "C-00000291*.sys" 4. Boot normally.

He also says that that workaround won't help everyone "and I've no further actionable help to provide at the minute."

09.30 Update: Sky News now back on air with presenters reading from paper scripts and sticking to the studio. But it looks like everyone else's problems are a long way from over yet...