Microsoft releases tool to speed up recovery of systems borked by CrowdStrike update
By now, most people are aware of - or have been personally affected by - the largest IT outage the world have ever witnessed, courtesy of a defective update for Crowdstrike Falcon Sensors that threw Windows hosts into a blue-screen-of-death (BSOD) loop. "We currently estimate that CrowdStrike's update affected 8.5 million Windows devices, or less than one percent of all Windows machines." David Weston, Microsoft's VP of Enterprise and OS Security, stated on Saturday. READ MORE...
Fallout From Faulty Friday CrowdStrike Update Persists
Echoes of the July 19 CrowdStrike glitch are likely to reverberate across the industry for years to come. For now, IT teams remain focused on slogging through a labor-intensive recovery. But recovery is just the beginning. What's sure to follow is a barrage of regulatory oversight, hard feelings among the IT community, and a tough reminder that even a small slip-up in a software update can have catastrophic global consequences. READ MORE...
Spain arrests three for using DDoSia hacktivist platform
The Spanish authorities have arrested three individuals for using DDoSia, a distributed denial of service platform operated by pro-Russian hacktivists, to conduct DDoS attacks against governments and organizations in NATO countries. The arrests were made in the suspects' homes in Seville, Huelva, and Manacor. The police also confiscated various computer equipment and documents of interest to be used in the ensuing investigations. READ MORE...
Treasury sanctions Russian hackers that breached US water utilities
The leaders of a Russian nationalist hacktivist group were sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department on Friday over a January incident that caused overflowing water storage tanks in multiple counties in Texas. Yuliya Vladimirovna Pankratova and Denis Olegovich Degtyarenko are the leader and "primary hacker," respectively, of the Cyber Army of Russia Reborn (CARR), according to the Treasury Department. READ MORE...
Notorious Chinese Hacker Gang GhostEmperor Re-Emerges After 2 Years
The mysterious and covert Chinese hacking group GhostEmperor has resurfaced after a two-year hiatus with even more advanced capabilities and evasion techniques. Initially discovered by Kaspersky Lab in 2021, GhostEmperor was notorious for targeting telecommunications and government entities in Southeast Asia through sophisticated supply chain attacks. The group's recent activities were uncovered by cybersecurity firm Sygnia, which detailed the group's methods in a report released this week. READ MORE...
EU gave CrowdStrike the keys to the Windows kernel, claims Microsoft
Did the EU force Microsoft to let third parties like CrowdStrike run riot in the Windows kernel as a result of a 2009 undertaking? This is the implication being peddled by the Redmond-based cloud and software titan. As the tech industry deals with the fallout from the CrowdStrike incident, Microsoft is facing questions. Why is software like CrowdStrike permitted to run at such a low level, where a failure could spell disaster for the operating system? READ MORE...
CrowdStrike Incident Leveraged for Malware Delivery, Phishing, Scams
Individuals and organizations have been warned that threat actors are leveraging the CrowdStrike incident for phishing, scams, and malware delivery. Many organizations across the world suffered major disruptions on Friday after cybersecurity giant CrowdStrike pushed out a routine sensor configuration update that triggered a logic error and caused a Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) on Windows systems. READ MORE...
CrowdStrike's Falcon Sensor also linked to Linux kernel panics and crashes
CrowdStrike's now-infamous Falcon Sensor software, which last week led to widespread outages of Windows-powered computers, has also caused crashes of Linux machines. Red Hat in June warned its customers of a problem it described as "Kernel panic observed after booting 5.14.0-427.13.1.el9_4.x86_64 by falcon-sensor process" that impacted some users of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.4 after (as the warning suggests) booting on kernel version 5.14.0-427.13.1.el9_4.x86_64. READ MORE...
- ...in 1894, the first motor race is held in France between the cities of Paris and Rouen. The winning vehicle's average speed: 11 mph.
- ...in 1933, American aviator Wiley Post returns to Floyd Bennett Field in New York, having flown solo around the world in 7 days, 18 hours, and 49 minutes.
- ...in 1940, "Jeopardy!" host and TV producer Alex Trebek is born in Ontario, Canada.
- ...in 1990, American cyclist Greg LeMond wins his second consecutive Tour de France, and his third overall.
