Microsoft has released an official Recovery Tool to resolve the global PC crash caused by the CrowdStrike software update. The problem affected more than 8.5 million Windows computers worldwide, paralyzing critical infrastructure.
As a reminder, the outage occurred last Thursday when the CrowdStrike update was automatically installed on devices. The problem is that CrowdStrike, as a security solution provider, operates at the operating system kernel level. An error at this level caused computers to become unbootable, causing what is known as a Blue Screen of Death (BSoD).
Microsoft quickly responded to the situation by sending specialists to assist customers. The company also worked with CrowdStrike, Google Cloud Platform and Amazon Web Services to quickly find the most effective ways to fix affected computers.
Microsoft’s new Recovery Tool is designed to significantly simplify and speed up the process of fixing the problem. Before its introduction, there was only a step-by-step guide that required manual intervention, which could be time-consuming, especially in organizations with hundreds or thousands of affected devices.
To use the Recovery Tool, the company provided detailed instructions and a list of necessary conditions. These include having at least 8 GB of free space on the affected computer, administrator rights, a BitLocker recovery key (for computers with encryption), and a bootable USB drive with a capacity of at least 1 GB.
This incident, unfortunately, clearly demonstrated the vulnerability of modern IT systems and the potential risks associated with dependence on a limited number of software providers and, accordingly, an accidental error (possibly a very minor one) led to massive inconvenience and millions in losses.