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The CrowdStrike issue hit 8.5 million computers running Windows on Friday, July 19 and repercussions are still being felt. But if the person at the next desk was using a Mac, they were blithely unaffected.
Here’s why that is, and what Microsoft is saying contributed to the issue occurring in the first place.Airport on July 19, 2024 in Washington, DC. A global computer outage started from an update from the cybersecurity company CrowdStrike that impacted flights worldwide along with disrupting broadcasters and banking services. You’ll have heard about the CrowdStrike problem and perhaps were impacted by it in some way. Personally, I came across problems when my flight was delayed—but not by much, British Airways was largely unaffected by it. Other airlines were not so lucky and thousands of flights were cancelled on Friday, July 19, Saturday, July 20 and beyond.It came about because the company’s Falcon system, designed to prevent cyberattacks, had a faulty update that let to millions of Windows PCs and servers finding themselves caught in a boot loop. “Friday’s outage was caused by a buggy update sent to corporate clients by CrowdStrike, one of hundreds of cybersecurity firms that have built a business promising to make Windows more secure. Microsoft has its own competing product, called Windows Defender,” according to the‘Are You Ready?’—Elon Musk Fans Wild Rumors Donald Trump Will Create A U.S. Bitcoin Strategic Reserve And Trigger Crypto Price ChaosSo, why was that neighbour, the one with the Mac, tapping away at their keyboard as usual? It’s down to that famous walled garden, which Apple is often criticized for offering. Because of this closed ecosystem, Apple has a “much healthier balance between forcing people to upgrade, forcing applications to maintain good security practices or they pull them off of the App Store,” in the words of Amit Yoran, chief executive of cybersecurity firm Tenable, who was quoted in the WSJ article. CrowdStrike’s Falcon system has privileged access to the computer’s kernel. It means that software developers can create software which interacts with the computer’s OS at a deep level, which contributed to the bug being so devastating. “In 2020, Apple told developers that its MacOS operating system would no longer grant them kernel-level access,” the WSJ reports, adding that this change was a pain for Apple’s partners, though it meant that the blue screen of death, as it’s colloquially called, which was so prevalent in the last few days, couldn’t happen to Macs. According to Patrick Wardle, the chief executive of Mac security maker DoubleYou. “What it meant was that a lot of third-party developers, ourselves included, had to rewrite our security software,” Wardle said. Which leads to the question of why Microsoft didn’t wall off its operating system in the same way. It’s down to an understanding reached with the European Commission after it pursued Microsoft in the early 2000s over “concerns that the company’s popular Windows software gave it an unfair advantage in other areas such as web browsers,” as described by the, . In 2009, Microsoft “agreed it would give makers of security software the same level of access to Windows that Microsoft gets,” according to a Microsoft spokesperson, with the blame seemingly pointed at the EU. None of which means the Mac is safe from all bugs, attacks or problems. But it escaped last Friday’s CrowdStrike issue.Our community is about connecting people through open and thoughtful conversations. We want our readers to share their views and exchange ideas and facts in a safe space.Insults, profanity, incoherent, obscene or inflammatory language or threats of any kindContinuous attempts to re-post comments that have been previously moderated/rejectedAttempts or tactics that put the site security at riskProtect your community.
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