It's not just Windows PCs that have gone belly up, as CrowdStrike's Falcon software has been b0rking Linux-powered computers, too

In last week's IT chaos, caused by a bug in an anti-hacking software package, some people thought only PCs running Windows were being hit with the BSOD (Blue Screen of Death). It turns out that CrowdStrike's Falcon program has been doing the same to Linux systems, taking down client and server machines.

Considering there were a lot of smug posts going around on Friday from a bunch of folks on their Linux systems, the fact that it's not just a Windows thing is certainly worth noting.

The news of CrowdStrike's woes not being limited to Windows installations was reported by the Register and it confirms what was already suspected in last week's IT outages that spanned the globe—it wasn't a Windows problem at all but entirely down to a separate piece of software. The application in question, CrowdStrike Falcon, is basically an anti-hacking/malware package used by countless businesses, large and small, and government institutions and services.

A bugged update to the program caused Windows PCs to undergo a stop error, better known as a BSOD (Blue Screen of Death), that just kept on reoccurring with each boot attempt. Microsoft has swung into action and created a recovery tool to help solve the affected computers and CrowdStrike's CEO, George Kurtz, was very apologetic about the whole incident.

But behind the news headlines, all displaying endless pictures of BSODs, was the less-reported fact that Linux systems were also being affected by Falcon bugs, though in one instance it predates last week's issue by a month. RedHat identified CrowdStrike's software as being the source of a kernel panic (the Linux equivalent of a Windows stop error), and the Register notes that earlier Falcon updates have done the same in Debian and RockyLinux.

Software bugs are so common that anyone using a computer just accepts them as being part and parcel of the modern IT world. But there is a big difference between an application having a few glitches and one that causes the operating system's