NEW YORK (AP) 鈥 CrowdStrike is blaming a bug in an update that allowed its cybersecurity systems to push bad data out to millions of customer computers, setting off last week's global tech outage that grounded flights, took TV broadcasts off air and disrupted banks, hospitals and retailers.
CrowdStrike also outlined measures it will take to prevent the problem from recurring, including staggering the rollout of updates, giving customers more control over when and where they occur, and providing more details about the updates that it plans.
The company on Wednesday posted details online from its 鈥減reliminary post incident 鈥 of the outage, which caused chaos for the many businesses that pay for the cybersecurity firm's software services.
The problem involved an 鈥渦ndetected error鈥 in the content-configuration update for its Falcon platform affecting Windows machines, the Texas-based company said.
A bug in the content-validation system allowed 鈥減roblematic content data鈥 to be deployed to CrowdStrike's customers. That triggered an 鈥渦nexpected exception鈥 that caused a Windows operating system crash, the company said.
As part of the new prevention measures, CrowdStrike said it's also beefing up internal testing as well as putting in place 鈥渁 new check" to stop 鈥渢his type of problematic content鈥 from being deployed again.
CrowdStrike has said a 鈥渟ignificant number鈥 of the approximately 8.5 million computers that crashed on Friday are back in operation as customers and regulators await a more detailed explanation of what went wrong.
Once its investigation is complete, CrowdStrike said it will publicly release its full analysis of the meltdown.
The outage caused days of widespread , highlighted how much of the on a few key providers of computing services and drawn the who want more details on what went wrong.
Also on Wednesday, CrowdStrike gained attention online for sending out $10 Uber Eats gift cards in an apparent effort to apologize for the outage's disruptions.
A CrowdStrike spokesperson said the company sent gift cards 鈥渢o our teammates and partners who have been helping customers through this situation" 鈥 but not customers or clients. The spokesperson added that Uber later flagged the offering as fraud 鈥渂ecause of high usage rates,鈥 without immediately providing more details on how many cards were distributed and when.
