Microsoft outage: What is CrowdStrike and why users are getting Windows blue screens

Windows PCs all around the world are crashing, and it's getting uglier fast.

The issue is due to a issue with CrowdStrike's Falcon Sensor software, and it's spreading in unpredictable ways. But what is CrowdStrike? What's a "blue screen of death"? And how worried should Windows PC owners be? Here's what you need to know.

What is CrowdStrike, and what is Falcon Sensor?

CrowdStrike is a cybersecurity company, and Falcon Sensor is software designed to prevent computer systems from cyber attacks. Earlier this morning, on July 19, the company warned its users that Windows systems are "experiencing a bugcheck/blue screen error related to the Falcon Sensor," and said that its engineering teams are "actively working to resolve this issue."

Apparently, an update to the Falcon software is what caused the issue; the company rolled back the update but numerous machines are still affected.

What's a blue screen of death?

If you've been so fortunate to never see a blue screen of death, it is a type of critical error on Windows PCs which essentially halts whatever the computer's been doing and displays an error report on a blue screen.

How widespread is this issue?

CrowdStrike's software is popular and widely used, and as a result, there are numerous outages across platforms including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft 365, Azure, Instagram, eBay, Visa, and AT&T. Downdetector is a good place to check which services are having issues. (Full disclosure: Downdetector is owned by Mashable's parent company, ZiffDavis.)

The problems are widespread enough to have caused some airlines, including Delta, American, RyanAir, and United Airlines, being grounded due to communications issues, apparently related to the outage.

Sky News was unable to broadcast live TV early on Friday, also apparently due to this problem.

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Even electronic payment systems in some supermarkets are down, rendering people unable to pay for groceries.

What should I do?

CrowdStrike software is typically maintained by the company's system administrator. For most users experiencing problems, this means that they should probably report the issue to their system admin and wait for resolution.

In a notice to users, CrowdStrike said that there is no need to open a support ticket with CrowdStrike as the company's engineers are aware of the issue and are actively working on it.

For support from CrowdStrike, users can go to the company's Support Portal over at supportportal.crowdstrike.com/s.

There's also an active discussion on Reddit, where system admins are sharing their experiences while trying to resolve the issue.

If you're eager to try to fix the issue yourself, here's a workaround: