(Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
After accidentally bricking millions of computers during last Friday’s outage, CrowdStrike says most affected Windows systems have been restored.
“I want to share that over 97% of Windows sensors are back online as of July 25,” CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz wrote in a LinkedIn post on Thursday.
The “sensors” refer to CrowdStrike’s Falcon product, which acts as an antivirus program. The company was trying improve Falcon's Windows-based sensor so it could detect new hacking techniques. But an error caused Falcon to trigger a “Blue Screen of Death” error on Windows systems with CrowdStrike’s software.
Initially, the outage forced companies and customers to manually fix the error, which Microsoft estimates affected about 8.5 million Windows devices. But Kurtz says CrowdStrike developed “automatic recovery techniques” to help speed up the repair effort.
Still, the 97% figure suggests that about 250,000 Windows devices remain offline, based on Microsoft’s assessment. Kurtz says CrowdStrike continues to work on reversing the damage.
“To our customers still affected, please know we will not rest until we achieve full recovery. At CrowdStrike, our mission is to earn your trust by safeguarding your operations,” he wrote, later adding: “Customer obsession has always been our guiding principle, and this experience has only strengthened our resolve.”
One of the biggest companies affected by the outage, Delta Air Lines, has also rebounded from the incident. “The worst impacts of the CrowdStrike-caused outage are clearly behind us,” Delta’s CEO wrote earlier this week. “Thursday is expected to be a normal day, with the airline fully recovered and operating at a traditional level of reliability.”
CrowdStrike still faces the threat of lawsuits. A few law firms are asking affected businesses to consider filing class-action lawsuits to collect damages.
CrowdStrike's reputation also took another hit after the company tried to apologize by sending its partners a $10 Uber Eats gift card—even though the outage may have cost the industry billions in disruptions. But some recipients said the card no longer worked due to Uber Eats flagging the voucher as fraudulent over the high usage rates.
Editor's note: This story has been corrected to say CrowdStrike sent the Uber Eats gift card to partners, rather than customers.
"CrowdStrike did not send gift cards to customers or clients," the company told PCMag. "We did send these to our teammates and partners who have been helping customers through this situation. Uber flagged it as fraud because of high usage rates."