- CrowdStrike is a cybersecurity company which has suffered from cyberattacks in the past.
- On early Friday morning, a faulty update delivered to Windows users has shut down airports and banking services, along with many other industries.
- The crisis also affected the Paris 2024 preparations: journalists struggled to get credentials validated, and security checks have been done manually.
If you woke up on Friday morning, preparing for the final day of the workweek, you may have been welcomed by the infamous “Blue Screen of Death” on your laptop. It has been a wild morning for IT departments around the world and the 2024 Paris Olympics have been affected as well.
All issues come from the same source: Windows was hit with a massive worldwide problem, caused by a defective update to software provided by CrowdStrike, an American cybersecurity company. It has hit companies and industries all over the world. It has even affected the vaunted Sphere in Las Vegas.
In France, it is slowing preparations for the Olympic Games, which are slated to kick off in a week. According to an ESPN report, the crisis has disrupted some of their processes, including deliveries and accreditations.
Olympic Deliveries and Accreditations Slowing Down, Ticketing Systems Fine
Very early on Friday morning, there was an update to Falcon Sensor, security software for Microsoft’s Windows operating system. This update has impacted Windows software all over the world, causing thousands of flight cancelations and slowing activity at airports worldwide. Banks and healthcare systems have also been impacted.
In Paris, it appears that the biggest issues have come from delivery services and the accreditations process. Teams are having issues getting their uniforms delivered, as shipping and logistics companies like UPS and FedEx have been impacted by the faulty software update.
The ESPN report also reveals that accreditation access is shut down as the desk is closed. This means journalists can’t receive their credentials for the event. A Sky Sports journalist arriving from New Zealand claimed that he hadn’t received his credentials yet and had no clue how long it would take.
The Olympic organizing committee released a statement:
"We have activated contingency plans in order to continue operations.
At this point, the impacts are limited and concern, in particular, the delivery of uniforms and accreditations.
Paris 2024's ticketing systems have been unaffected. The operations around the preparation of venues is continuing normally, and work schedules are not at risk. The torch relay is continuing along its route as normal."
So, it appears that the preparations for the Olympics have only been slightly affected by these worldwide outages.
When Will These Outages Stop?
It’s tough to tell when everything will be back online. Now that CrowdStrike has identified the issue, a fix has been deployed and rolled out to Windows. With an outage this large, it will take some time to get everything back on track. However, an article from The Guardian claims that this isn’t being treated as a cyberattack, but rather just a flawed update.
This isn’t CrowdStrike’s first time dealing with difficult situations. The Texas-based company was involved in the 2014 Sony Pictures leaks, as well as cyberattacks on the Democrats in 2015 and 2016, carried out by Russian hackers.
Again, this wasn’t a cyberattack. But CrowdStrike has had to deal with incidents like this before, so it’s expected for the crisis to end soon.
