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Faith-Based Daily Awareness Post

Faith-Based Daily Awareness Post 19 July 2024

Faith-Based Security Headlines

These updates are shared to help raise the situational awareness of Faith-Based organizations to best defend against and mitigate the impacts from all-hazards threats including physical security, cybersecurity, and natural disasters.

Major Windows BSOD issue takes banks, airlines, and broadcasters offline

A faulty update from cybersecurity provider CrowdStrike is responsible for the global outage. Thousands of Windows machines are experiencing a Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) issue at boot today, impacting banks, airlines, TV broadcasters, supermarkets, and many more businesses worldwide. A faulty update from cybersecurity provider CrowdStrike is knocking affected PCs and servers offline, forcing them into a recovery boot loop so machines can’t start properly. CrowdStrike is widely used by many businesses worldwide for managing the security of Windows PCs and servers. Australian banks, airlines, and TV broadcasters first raised the alarm as thousands of machines started to go offline.

Statement from CrowdStrike: Statement on Falcon Content Update for Windows Hosts

CrowdStrike States:

“CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts. Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted. This is not a security incident or cyberattack.

The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed. We refer customers to the support portal for the latest updates and will continue to provide complete and continuous updates on our website.

We further recommend organizations ensure they’re communicating with CrowdStrike representatives through official channels.

Our team is fully mobilized to ensure the security and stability of CrowdStrike customers.”

CrowdStrike also provides:

  • Summary
  • Details
  • Current Action
  • Workaround Steps for individual hosts
  • Workaround Steps for public cloud or similar environment including virtual
  • AWS-specific documentation
  • Azure environments
  • Bitlocker recovery-related KBs

Related Articles:

Analyst Comments:

The widespread disruption caused by the defect in a single content update for Windows hosts shows the world’s dependence on IT systems. Not only can bad actors cause serious problems, but non-malicious/accidental errors can significantly disrupt a Faith-Based Organization’s (FBO) operations. In addition to maintaining basic cyber hygiene and backing up data, FBOs should consider having backup communication methods for times when email and phone service may not be available. Consider hard copies of contact information, Emergency Action Plans, and other vital information since electronic versions may not be available.

As always, Faith-Based ISAO’s website provides resources in the Resource Library, including information on Protecting Digital Assets.

Updates on Attempted Assassination of Former President Donald Trump

More Security-focused Content

Attacks on Houses of Worship in 2023
Read the March 2024 Threat Level Statement Update
Access all-hazards resources from public and private sector partners, curated by the FB-ISAO team.

The FB-ISAO’s sponsor Gate 15 publishes a free daily newsletter called the SUN. Curated from their open source intelligence collection process, the SUN informs leaders and analysts with the critical news of the day and provides a holistic look at the current global, all-hazards threat environment. Ahead of the daily news cycle, the SUN allows current situational awareness into the topics that will impact your organization. To sign-up for The SUN, please sign up below.

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