CrowdStrike blames bad data upload for global tech outage [Video]

CrowdStrike on Wednesday released more details about the cause of Friday’s technology outage, which crippled Microsoft Windows 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 …