Airport blues: Passengers grounded by Microsoft-CrowdStrike outage
Publication Type
Case
Publication Date
12-2024
Abstract
On July 19, 2024, CrowdStrike, one of the largest players in the global endpoint detection and response software market, pushed a single configuration file as an update to its Falcon Sensor program. This program is commonly used by Microsoft enterprise computers running on the Windows platform. The file update was meant to enable Falcon to detect if hackers were using novel ways to hack end-user machines, but it caused a logic error that led to computers crashing around the world.
Students are asked to put themselves in the shoes of an Information Technology (IT) Support Technician at Singapore’s Changi Airport Group (CAG), who has been sent to assist the ground crew of Kuaifei, an airline operating at the airport. They will need to analyse how the incident was discovered, mitigated, managed, and communicated.
This case is intended for use in an enterprise solutions management course in an information systems undergraduate programme. Students should be able to achieve the following learning objectives: apply ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) incident management frameworks to analyse large-scale IT outages, and understand key ITIL incident management stages; evaluate technical root cause analysis; and design incident response protocols for mission-critical systems.
Keyword(s)
Root Cause Analysis, IT Security Management, Cybersecurity, Process Management, Service Delivery, Enterprise Computing
Discipline
Management Information Systems
Research Areas
Intelligent Systems and Optimization
Data Source
Published Sources
Industry
Airline Industry
Geographic Coverage
Singapore
Temporal Coverage
2024
Education Level
Executive Education; Postgraduate; Undergraduate
Publisher
Singapore Management University
Case ID
SMU-24-0029
Additional URL
https://cmp-shop.smu.edu.sg/products/airport-blues-passengers-grounded-by-microsoft-crowdstrike-outage?variant=42392972492842
Comments
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