Tag: security

The Day Computers Stopped

Posted on | by C. | Leave a Comment on The Day Computers Stopped

Over night on July 18-19, CrowdStrike quietly pushed out an update to Microsoft computers and servers. By 4 AM CDT, Help Desk Central at Texas A&M University was on alert of a problem campus wide. It seemed computers were stuck in a Blue Screen (of Death) restart loop, and Windows and Azure (cloud) servers were shutting down. Since nearly every Windows computer on campus – including classroom computers – were affected, the University’s President cancelled classes, and the IT professionals got to work identifying and fixing every computer they could find with the problem.

The CrowdStrike IT outage forced Texas A&M University to cancel classes Friday as IT professionals manually fixed thousands of impacted devices.

Source: KBTX.com

CrowdStrike is a global corporation, and their security software is in millions of computers world wide.

The global computer outage affecting airports, banks and other businesses on Friday appears to stem at least partly from a software update issued by major US cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, experts told CNN.

Source: CNN.com

How could such a small update do so much damage? That is the billion dollar question!

3 arrested in D/FW airport security breach

Posted on | by C. | Leave a Comment on 3 arrested in D/FW airport security breach

05:18 AM CST on Wednesday, November 1, 2006

By HOLLY YAN / The Dallas Morning News

Three men being chased by officers Tuesday night drove through a security fence at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport and ran across an airfield before they were arrested near a terminal.

D/FW DPS officers began pursuing the men’s vehicle on East Airfield Drive about 8 p.m. on suspicion of reckless driving, airport spokesman David Magaña said. The men crashed through the fence on the northeast side of the airfield operations area of the airport, abandoned their vehicle and ran across the airfield toward the terminal area. They were arrested near Terminal A.

‘The investigation is continuing, but at this point there is no indication that the incident was related to an act of terrorism,’ Mr. Magaña said.

Two of the airport’s seven runways were temporarily closed as a precaution. One arriving flight was diverted during the incident, and three departing flights were delayed, Mr. Magaña said.

Officials said there was no danger to any aircraft. Local and federal agencies were investigating the incident, but the charges had not been released.”