People around the world woke up Friday morning July 19, 2024, to a puzzling condition that had the potential to impact any computer served by Crowdstrike, a cybersecurity firm based in Austin, Texas, that says it is used by more than half of Fortune 500 companies. Airports around the world were impacted, and travelers found themselves unable to get a flight out or in and were stranded in the middle of a trip. Computers in many businesses around the nation were also impacted.
In Tattnall County, Russ Rhoden and his wife, Dawn, were stranded in Atlanta for several hours, and Brett Warren was stranded in Tampa. He was trying to get a flight to Atlanta and then Savannah, and it took 14 hours to get home. Casey Corbett returned to work at Ogeechee Technical College (OTC) Monday morning and discovered all computers were down. A computer technician had to remove a faulty code issued by Crowdstrike from the OTC computers one at the time to get the systems back up and running.
VFW members Earl Boyett, Ronnie Thomas, Wayne Campbell, and Ronnie McCall were traveling north of Macon, Georgia, about 9 a.m., to purchase an aluminum wheelchair ramp. They stopped in Dublin at an Advance Auto Parts store to purchase a pigtail to repair lights on the trailer, and they were told that all computers were down and no transactions could be made. Fortunately, they found the correct pigtail and were able to purchase it on the one computer in the store that was not tied into the Internet. Contrary to logic, the store couldn’t take cash; it could only be purchased on a card.
The most impacted group from Tattnall probably involved the Tattnall County High School Best Buddy Club. Members Kyleigh Monroe and her mother, Coty Wingate; Hampton Brown; and TCHS Sponsor Kristen Moody Chauncey arrived at the Savannah-Hilton Head Airport Friday morning, July 19, 2024, at 3 a.m., to fly to a meeting at Indiana University. Flights were delayed, and pilots didn’t show up, and when they finally got to Atlanta, flights out were delayed or cancelled. For a while, it looked as if someone would have to drive to Atlanta to bring them home. After they finally arrived at the conference and prepared to return, the flights back home were just as chaotic. At various times, they were offered alternate routes and the group would have to be split up, but that was unacceptable. They finally got home around 1 a.m. Tuesday morning, July 23.
The problem was a faulty code issued by Crowdstrike that was pushed into individual PCs around the world that were serviced by the Crowdstrike cybersecurity system. That code caused infected computers to continually reboot, which took the computers offline and would not allow the company to issue a mass patch. Technicians had to remove the faulty code one computer at a time.
It was one more indication as to how dependent the world is on the world network of computers. It is also unnerving when a company that is charged with Internet security creates a problem that will not respond to a universal correction.
