Microsoft CrowdStrike Update Affected Under 1% of Total Windows PCs; Details Inside

Microsoft services and Windows faced a service disruption on July 18 due to the CrowdStrike update that impacted IT systems globally. Soon after the outage subsided, Microsoft shared that 8.5 million Windows devices were affected by the outage. This is less than one per cent of total Windows users. Moreover, the company shared the steps it undertook after the CrowdStrike update.

Microsoft and CrowdStrike shared a post as a solution to solve the update on the affected systems. The tech giant also shared it is engaging with Microsoft engineers and experts to work in partnership with customers to solve problems in affected systems. The company is also partnering with Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and Amazon Web Services (AWS) to share information on the state of impact.

Also Read: Microsoft Windows Outage: CrowdStrike Explains Reason Behind Massive Service Disruption That Sparked Blue Screen Error

Users can also stay up-to-date with the latest status of services via the Azure Status Dashboard. "We're working around the clock and providing ongoing updates and support. Additionally, CrowdStrike has helped us develop a scalable solution that will help Microsoft's Azure infrastructure accelerate a fix for CrowdStrike's faulty update," Microsoft noted.

Microsoft said CrowdStrike-like incidents are "infrequent", and the company estimates "the update affected 8.5 million Windows devices or less than one per cent of all Windows machines". The company also highlighted "safe deployment" and "disaster recovery" methods in situations similar to CrowdStrike. CrowdStrike explained the technical details of the incident in a separate blog post.

Also Read: Windows CrowdStrike Update: CERT-In Issues Advisory On Microsoft Windows Disruptions, Shares Fix For Affected Users

"While the percentage was small, the broad economic and societal impacts reflect the use of CrowdStrike by enterprises that run many critical services," said David Weston, Vice President of Enterprise and OS Security at Microsoft. For context, the outage that plagued Windows (Mac and Linux unaffected) with system crashes impacted airlines, communication services, banks, government and business organisations and more globally.