Free Republic

“That’s because major portions of the airline’s computer systems are still using Windows 3.1, a 32-year-old version of Microsoft’s computer operating software,” the website said. “It’s so old that the CrowdStrike issue doesn’t affect it so Southwest is still operating as normal. It’s typically not a good idea to wait so long to update, but in this one instance Southwest has done itself a favor.”

A sloppy update to software made by US cybersecurity giant CrowdStrike has taken PCs and servers used by airlines, railways, banks, broadcasters and even medical facilities around the world offline. For anyone following US politics over the past decade or so, the company’s name should be eerily familiar.CrowdStrike is making global headlines (and causing global headaches) this week after an update released Friday morning afflicted thousands of corporate machines running Microsoft products with the infamous blue screen of death error. While the company has already put out a fix, the buggy update is expected to cause billions of dollars and...

CrowdStrike Intelligence has since observed threat actors leveraging the event to distribute a malicious ZIP archive named crowdstrike-hotfix.zip. The ZIP archive contains a HijackLoader payload...Notably, Spanish filenames and instructions within the ZIP archive indicate this campaign is likely targeting Latin America-based (LATAM) CrowdStrike customers.

undreds of flights were cancelled at British airports yesterday due to the fault ... Travel disruption is continuing today as trains are hit in Crowdstrike outage with ticket machines and scanners going down at London stations. The meltdown chaos comes after the world's biggest IT disaster struck, with thousands of Brits stranded abroad. It happened on one of year's busiest travel days, with families now desperately queuing at Dover Port in an attempt to get home. After another 45 flights were cancelled today, 28,000 Brits are fighting to get a seat on a plane. Some passengers stuck overseas have been...

A Microsoft global outage has wreaked havoc across America, locking countless individuals out of their bank accounts, causing hospital cancelations and even grounding flights. The notorious Blue Screen of Death is popping up everywhere, from banks to supermarkets and media outlets, causing widespread panic and confusion. All United, Delta and American Airlines flights were grounded amid the chaos. Microsoft has issued a statement on the issue. “Our services are still seeing continuous improvements while we continue to take mitigation actions,” Microsoft said on X this morning. “We still expect that users will continue to see gradual relief as we continue...

Vanity: Massive IT Outage Hits Major U.S. Hospital Chain: Microsoft Crowdstrike Glitch Forces Cancellation of All Elective Surgeries and Medical Procedures....

July 19 (Reuters) - A global tech outage was disrupting operations across multiple industries on Friday, with airlines halting flights, some broadcasters off air and services from banking to healthcare hit by system problems. While major U.S. airlines - American Airlines (AAL.O), opens new tab, Delta Airlines (DAL.N), opens new tab and United Airlines (UAL.O), opens new tab - grounded flights, other carriers and airports around the world reported delays and disruptions early on Friday. Banks and financial services firms from Australia to India and Germany warned customers of disruptions. In Britain, booking systems used by doctors were offline, multiple...

Falcon Sensor putting hosts into deathloop - but there's a workaround icon Simon Sharwood Fri 19 Jul 2024 // 06:46 UTC UPDATED An update to a product from infosec vendor CrowdStrike is bricking computers running Windows. The Register has found numerous accounts of Windows 10 PCs crashing, displaying the Blue Screen of Death, then being unable to reboot. “We're seeing BSOD Org wide that are being caused by csagent.sys, and it's taking down critical services. I'll open a ticket, but this is a big deal,” wrote one user. Forums report that Crowdstrike has issued an advisory with a URL that...

American Airlines, United and Delta have asked the FAA for global ground stop on all flights, according to an alert from the FAA on Friday morning. The FAA is telling air traffic controllers to tell airborne pilots that airlines are currently experiencing communication issues. Meanwhile, flights in the air will stay in the air, but no American, United or Delta flights will take off....

Microsoft sparked internal revolt after it fired its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) team, leading the program's leader to slam the company's 'changing business needs.' The tech giant's move was exposed in an email obtained by Business Insider, which appears to show the DEI internal team leader criticizing the fact diversity was 'no longer business critical.' Microsoft joins a number of tech companies in walking back DEI commitments that were made in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, including Google, Meta and Zoom. It is unclear how many employees were laid off, and Microsoft did not...

Big Tech consumes more than many countries.. Tech giants Google and Microsoft each consumed 24 TWh each of electricity during 2023, surpassing the consumption of more than 100 countries, new research has claimed. Analysis by Michael Thomas, shared on X, claims both Google and Microsoft consumed the same amount of energy as Azerbaijan, which has an estimated GDP of $78.7 billion. Google’s 2023 revenue stood at $307.4 billion, and Microsoft’s at $211.9 billion. The massive energy usage underscores the substantial environmental impact of these companies. But it also serves as a reminder of their sheer scale, and the positive impact...

After Microsoft laid off an internal team focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion, a team leader blasted the company for a lack of investment in these efforts. "True systems-change work associated with DEI programs everywhere are no longer business critical or smart as they were in 2020," a leader of the team wrote in an email sent to thousands of employees, which was viewed by Business Insider. The email states the team was eliminated due to "changing business needs" as of July 1. It's unclear how many employees were affected. Many technology companies, including Microsoft, made commitments to improve diversity...

Palestinians living abroad have accused Microsoft of closing their email accounts without warning - cutting them off from crucial online services. They say it has left them unable to access bank accounts and job offers - and stopped them using Skype, which Microsoft owns, to contact relatives in war-torn Gaza. Microsoft says they violated its terms of service - a claim they dispute. "They killed my life online," said Eiad Hametto, who lives in Saudi Arabia. "They’ve suspended my email account that I’ve had for nearly 20 years - It was connected to all my work," he told the BBC....

I'm telling you that Barrett has decided she's a politician, not a Justice...' Tech companies are once again colluding with Democrats to push disinformation and censor legitimate conservative opinions, this time with the imprimatur of legitimacy conferred by the U.S. Supreme Court that allows them to do so more shamelessly and aggressively than ever. Today’s censorship is being made possible by the letters A, C and B—as in Justice Amy Coney Barrett. While the court’s two other centrists, Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Chief Justice John Roberts, are equally culpable (along with its leftist bloc) in allowing the atrocity that is...

I've been pointing out Windows security bugs since Windows for Workgroups showed up in 1992 and I showed how you could steal data from your coworker's spreadsheets using Object Linking and Embedding (OLE). You'd think Microsoft would have figured security out by now. But no. It's only gotten worse – much worse.In June 2023, Chinese hacking group Storm-0558 stole US government "secure" messages from Microsoft's Exchange Online. I was only surprised that the Feds managed to catch them – Microsoft certainly didn't figure it out.Former senior White House cyber policy director AJ Grotto said it best: he asserted it was...

Windows 11 officialy squeezed within the confines of 16GB storage. Microsoft has published the system requirements for Windows 11 IoT Enterprise LTSC 2024, which recently started to roll out. The specification will help steer design decisions for upcoming devices and computers running Windows IoT Enterprise. Lowered minimum specifications, with TPM and Secure Boot optional, are among the most interesting aspects of this release. Windows 11 IoT Enterprise is a full version of Windows Enterprise intended for fixed-purpose devices like ATMs, point-of-sale terminals, digital signage, kiosks, and industrial automation systems, among others. In other words, this version of Windows is not...

Melinda French Gates, billionaire and ex-wife of tech giant Bill Gates, has pledged $200 million to a number of pro-abortion organisations, at least five of which explicitly spend money funding abortions or lobbying Governments to repeal legislation that protects the unborn from abortion, making her one of the biggest individual donors to pro-abortion organisations in the world. Writing in the New York Times last month, Gates announced she would be giving $1 billion (£782.4m) over the next two years “for people and organizations working on behalf of women and families around the world, including on reproductive rights in the United...

Diversity & Inclusivity The power of collaboration is greater when many different perspectives are included. Addressing Diversity and Inclusivity A diversity of ideas and contributions, one that originates from a diverse community, from all walks of life, cultures, countries, and skin colors—is vital for building sustainable and healthy open source communities. Individuals from diverse backgrounds inject new and innovative ideas to advance an inclusive and welcoming ecosystem for all. Linux Foundation is committed to building diverse and inclusive communities. Creating those diverse communities requires effort and commitment to creating inclusive and welcoming spaces. We continue to work to address this...

(Reuters) -Shares of Nvidia rallied to record highs on Wednesday, with the AI chipmaker's stock market valuation hitting the $3 trillion mark and overtaking Apple to become the world's second most valuable company. The latest rally in Nvidia comes as it prepares to split its stock ten-for-one, effective on June 7, a move that could increase its appeal to individual investors.

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has once again targeted Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) after a clip of Satya Nadella surfaced on social media talking about new AI capabilities in Windows PCs. What Happened: In an interview with Wall Street Journal which was made public on Monday, Nadella spoke about new AI capabilities of Microsoft’s Copilot+PCs with Qualcomm chips and AI Windows. One of the features was “Recall,” which enables Windows to take constant screenshots of the user’s screen and use a generative AI model to process the data, making it searchable. The clip from the video was shared by a...