CrowdStrike releases patch for constantly rebooting PCs

AUSTIN (KXAN) — Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike released a patch for its faulty code early Friday, but with the bug causing affected systems to continually restart it may not be possible for systems to receive that update.

The problem, according to CrowdStrike, only impacted computer systems running a Windows operating system that were online late Thursday night. Systems that were activated after the patch deployed Friday morning were not affected, nor were systems using Windows 7/2008, Mac or Linux operating systems.

The company said that system administrators should reboot the host system in order to attempt to download the patch.

If that fails, it recommends starting the system using safe mode or the Windows Recovery Environment, then deleting the file “C-00000291.sys” within the directory System32\drivers\CrowdStrike, according to CrowdStrike.

For cloud-based systems using Windows Azure, the company recommends restoring a pre-update snapshot of the system.

If that isn’t possible, users will need to detach the virtual server’s operating system disk volume, move it to a new virtual server, and then delete the file “C-00000291.sys” within the directory System32\drivers\CrowdStrike. It claims that the disk can be re-added to its prior server and function as intended.

CrowdStrike also recommends Azure users back up the OS disk volume before using the above workaround.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KXAN Austin.