CrowdStrike IT outage

Update | Monday, August 5, 2024

On July 19, numerous large-scale IT outages impacted the airline industry and many other businesses. The issue was isolated to customers of CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity service provider. The outages resulted from a defect in an update for Windows hosts. Mac and Linux hosts were not impacted. This was not a cyberattack.

Columbus State is not a customer of CrowdStrike. Fortunately, the college’s third-party cloud vendors have not reported any outages or issues with their systems. Columbus State’s IT teams continue to monitor the situation. If anything changes, we will keep the campus informed. (Read more, including tips on best practices.) 

As with any disaster, malicious actors are quick to respond. Hackers hope to attract unsuspecting users searching for IT fixes for the outage. Imposters have also posed as independent researchers selling fake recovery solutions. These threat actors use social engineering, phishing attempts, credential theft, deep fake video and voice calls, and false information to lure users to click a link or open an attachment that infects their computers, creating vulnerabilities for criminals to use to attack.

While the college was not directly affected, Director of Information Security Ben Dalton reminds the campus community to remain vigilant. Verify the authenticity of any communication by following these best practices:

• Remember that companies generally don’t contact you to ask for your username or password.
• Don’t click on anything in an unsolicited email or text message. Look up the company’s phone number on your own (don’t use the one a potential scammer is providing) and call the company to ask if the request is legitimate.
• Carefully examine the email address, URL, and spelling used in any correspondence. Scammers use slight differences to trick your eye and gain your trust.
• Be careful what you download. Never open an email attachment from someone you don’t know, and be wary of email attachments that are forwarded to you.

If you get a suspicious email, report it. Email abuse@cscc.edu, or call the IT Support Center at 614-287-5050.

 

 

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