CrowdStrike CEO Reports Over 97% of Sensors Restored: Microsoft Outage

Microsoft Windows experienced a global outage last week, affecting businesses, airlines, and banks worldwide. The IT disruption was caused by a faulty software update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. Although CrowdStrike quickly released a fix, it took several hours for the affected systems to fully recover.

In a LinkedIn post, CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz announced that more than 97% of Windows sensors are now back online. He attributed this progress to the dedicated efforts of customers, partners, and the CrowdStrike team. However, he acknowledged that the work is not yet complete and reiterated the company’s commitment to restoring all impacted systems.

Microsoft reported that approximately 8.5 million Windows devices were affected. The Microsoft outage occurred because of a fault in the CrowdStrike Falcon platform sensor, which caused computers running Windows to crash and display the blue screen of death (BSOD).

In his LinkedIn post, Kurtz wrote:

“I want to share that over 97% of Windows sensors are back online as of July 25. This progress is thanks to the tireless efforts of our customers, partners, and the dedication of our team at CrowdStrike. However, we understand our work is not yet complete, and we remain committed to restoring every impacted system.

To our customers still affected, please know we will not rest until we achieve full recovery. At CrowdStrike, our mission is to earn your trust by safeguarding your operations. I am deeply sorry for the disruption this outage has caused and personally apologize to everyone impacted. While I can’t promise perfection, I can promise a response that is focused, effective, and urgent.

Our recovery efforts have been bolstered by the development of automatic recovery techniques and the mobilization of all our resources to support our customers. We have published a preliminary incident report (PIR) detailing how this happened and the measures we are taking to prevent similar incidents in the future.

CrowdStrike is committed to advancing our mission to stop breaches, with a renewed focus on customer controls and resilience. Our dedication to customer satisfaction has always been our guiding principle, and this experience has only strengthened our resolve.”