One File Stopped the World 🌍

On July 19, 2024, a routine CrowdStrike content update crashed about 8.5 million Windows machines. It wasn't a hack.

The cause: code expected 21 input fields but received 20, leading to an out-of-bounds memory read inside the Windows kernel. Many machines then had to be fixed by hand.

Which outage do you remember 👇

Sources: CrowdStrike root cause analysis: crowdstrike.com/en-us/blog/channel-file-291-rca-available/ TechTarget: techtarget.com/cybersecurity/news/366602392/CrowdStrike-details-errors-that-led-to-mass-IT-outage

Voiceover: Kokoro TTS (Apache-2.0). 3D animation, music sound: original.