The chaos around the world continues following the largest collapse of information systems in history, which occurred during the security software upgrade by the company Crowdstrike for Microsoft Windows.
Hundreds of thousands continue to see the blue screen on their computers, while “air gaps” for air carriers persist. Over 1,600 flights have been canceled so far today. Meanwhile, hospitals and other organizations are facing issues as their electronic systems are offline.
Beyond the problems with services and the supply chain, a new danger is beginning to emerge. Cybercrime is here and fully ready to strike.
Explainer: The great Microsoft blackout via Crowdstrike – How it happened, how it spread, how long it will last
Alerts from authorities in Australia and Britain
The Australian Cyber Security Centre (ASD) issued a warning today about hackers attempting to intercept data and money from the victims of the digital blackout. Essentially, they are trying to “phish” them by promising to resolve the issue, claiming to be experts who want to help or even staff from CrowdStrike.
“Alert! We understand that a number of malicious websites and unofficial code are being published that claim to help entities recover,” states the warning that was issued. The service urges those facing problems to use CrowdStrike’s official website directly for information and assistance.
The ASD’s warning follows a similar advisory from the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) in the United Kingdom. Since yesterday, the service has called on users to be especially cautious of suspicious emails or calls pretending to help on behalf of CrowdStrike or Microsoft.
“An increase in phishing related to this outage has already been observed, as opportunistic malicious actors seek to exploit the situation,” the service stated in its announcement.
Flight cancellations
Meanwhile, queues at airports in Britain, Germany, India, the USA, and other countries continue.
Since Saturday morning, 1,639 flights have been canceled, adding to the 6,855 flights canceled in total yesterday. This equates to 6.2% of all scheduled flights.
About $10 billion impact on Crowdstrike’s market capitalization
CrowdStrike saw its market capitalization shrink from $83.48 billion on Thursday night to $72.68 billion on Friday morning. On Friday evening, it closed at $74.22 billion, recovering some of the losses.
The stock was hammered, at one point dropping as much as 20%, ultimately closing down about 11%.
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