In a recent incident, CrowdStrike, a prominent cybersecurity company, faced a major outage that affected Windows systems to experience the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD).

The outage specifically impacted Windows hosts. The issue stemmed from a defect in a single content update related to Falcon sensors. Fortunately, Linux and Mac hosts remained unaffected.

Businesses worldwide experienced widespread disruptions on their Windows workstations. CrowdStrike confirmed that this was not a security incident or cyberattack.

The specific mitigation steps provided by CrowdStrike are listed below:

Boot into Safe Mode or Recovery Environment:

• Restart your Windows host and enter Safe Mode or the Windows Recovery Environment 

Navigate to the CrowdStrike Directory:

• Go to C:\Windows\System32\drivers\CrowdStrike (or the equivalent directory on WinRE/WinPE).

Delete the Problematic File:

• Locate the file matching “C-00000291*.sys.”
• Delete it from the CrowdStrike directory.

Boot Normally:

• Reboot your host normally.