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CrowdStrike blames bug for allowing bad data upload that led to global tech crash
CrowdStrike on Wednesday released more details about the cause of Friday’s technology outage, which crippled computers around the world and disrupted airlines, hospitals, banks and other businesses.
The cybersecurity company blamed a bug in a program that’s meant to catch issues before software updates are uploaded to customers. That glitch blocked “problematic content data” from being flagged before it was sent to clients, CrowdStrike said in an update on its website.
The resulting bad data led to a critical error that “could not be gracefully handled, resulting in a Windows operating system crash (BSOD),” Crowdstrike wrote, referring to the “blue screen of death” that appeared on the screens of affected computers.
Crowdstrike also said it would take future measures to prevent similar outages, including staggering the rollout of updates, giving customers more control over when and where they occur, and providing more details about planned updates.
The company has said a “significant number” of the approximately 8.5 million computers that crashed on Friday are back in operation as customers and regulators await a more detailed explanation of what went wrong.
Once its investigation is complete, Crowdstrike said that it will publicly release its full analysis of the meltdown.
The outage caused days of widespread technological havoc, highlighting the vulnerability of corporate networks. The outage is drawing attention from government regulators and lawmakers, with U.S. House leaders calling on CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz to testify to Congress about the cybersecurity company’s role in the outage.
—With reporting by the Associated Press.
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Husband of Russia’s richest woman arrested for murder after deadly shootout at offices of retail giant Wildberries
The estranged husband of Russia’s richest woman and CEO of retail giant Wildberries was arrested Thursday and charged with several crimes including murder, a day after a deadly armed raid at the company’s central Moscow offices.
Billionaire Tatyana Bakalchuk released a tearful message a day earlier, saying her husband Vladislav Bakalchuk, whom she is currently divorcing, led an armed raid into the Wildberries offices.
Vladislav Bakalchuk’s lawyers said in a message on his social media page that he was “detained for 48 hours” and charged with murder, attempted murder, assault of a law enforcement officer and vigilantism.
Two people, including a security guard, were killed in the shooting at the offices, which lie a few streets away from the Kremlin.
The incident came weeks after the company finalized a merger deal that Vladislav criticized and that strongman Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov vowed to stop.
Vladislav’s lawyers said he was on his way to a “pre-agreed meeting to settle a corporate conflict.” Vladislav alleges that it was staff at the office who fired the first shots, the Reuters news agency reported.
But Bakalchuk called her husband’s claims “absurd” and said “no one agreed to any negotiations.”
“Vladislav, what are you doing? How are you going to look in the eyes of your parents and our children?”
Wildberries is Russia’s largest online retailer. Tatyana Bakalchuk founded the company in 2004, growing it from an online clothes reseller into a major marketplace for countless other products, Reuters reported.
According to Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index in 2021, she was the 40th richest woman in the world and the first self-made woman billionaire out of Russia.
Tatyana Bakalchuk is the majority oner of the company, while her estranged husband holds a one-percent stake.
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