KUALA LUMPUR, July 28 — Microsoft has attributed the recent global outage caused by a CrowdStrike update to European Commission regulations. The outage, which began last Friday, disrupted services across airlines, banks, hospitals, and other sectors, rendering PCs running Windows 10 unusable due to continuous recovery loops. The issue stemmed from an update to CrowdStrike Falcon antivirus software, which has full access to the Windows kernel—a critical part of the operating system.
According to Microsoft, the European Commission’s interoperability rules require it to grant third-party security software kernel access, leading to this widespread failure. In contrast, Apple’s macOS, which restricts kernel access, was unaffected. The incident underscores the trade-offs between open access and security, as regulations intended to enhance competition may inadvertently compromise system stability. CrowdStrike has apologized and is working on measures to prevent future occurrences.
