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Fans Hilariously Blame Mercedes Sponsor as Blue Screen of Death Affects Practice at Hungarian Grand Prix
On Friday, a chaotic computer outage affected the whole world when Microsoft systems crashed due to a botched content update from the security platform CrowdStrike.
![MercedesPetronas F1 Car [Credit-X@F1]](https://www.pinkvilla.com/images/2024-07/1657877719_mercedespetronas-f1-car-credit-xf1.jpg "MercedesPetronas F1 Car [Credit-X@F1]")
CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity business that has sponsored the Mercedes Formula One team since 2019, has made a huge mistake, bringing worldwide activities across numerous industries to a standstill.
CrowdStrike's seemingly regular upgrade unwittingly caused massive IT disruptions, most notably the iconic Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) on Windows-operated PCs worldwide.
Sky News was pushed off the air, planes were grounded across the United States, rail services in the United Kingdom were severely disrupted, and passengers at Edinburgh Airport experienced boarding pandemonium.
The cause of these disturbances was identified as a malfunctioning component in CrowdStrike's Falcon Sensor, a security tool meant to protect networks against attacks.
Even Mercedes wasn’t spared of the outage
The interruption sparked significant speculation in the Formula One world about whether Mercedes will be affected by the Hungarian Grand Prix weekend, which begins with the first two practice sessions today.
CrowdStrike's Overwatch director, known as 'Brody,' confirmed on X (previously Twitter) that the underlying issue was caused by a "faulty channel file," which had a substantial impact on the company's operations and reputation.
CrowdStrike engineers are currently working to resolve the issue, and Microsoft is also taking necessary mitigation steps across its cloud services.
A user, @SCUDERIAFEMBOY, stated on social media that the Mercedes team is experiencing system issues at the Hungarian GP due to its use of Microsoft. For those who are unaware, Microsoft is the sponsor of the Formula One team Mercedes.
On his X account, he wrote, “the microsoft outage at mercedes (crying emoji) omfg.”
Fans troll Microsoft and Crowd Strike for their mistake
After this incident, social media has been evident with fans roaring for justice. One fan sarcastically wrote, “The costs of having CrowdStrike as a sponsor…” indirectly pointing fingers at Microsoft and their cyber security firm CrowdStrike.
Another fan wrote, “They are definitely not winning this week,” pointing to the team not winning at the Hungarian Grand Prix.
Another fan wrote, “crowdstrike as sponsor backfiring.”
Another fan had a hilarious thing to say as he wrote, “Bono I can't move the car it says the software is updating."
Another fan believes Microsoft will now blame it on hackers, as the fan wrote, “Microsoft spokesman saying Israeli hackers behind blue screen issue in windows .”
Will the CrowdStrike IT outage affect any Mercedes?
Crowdstrike has created turmoil around the world, with a software problem shutting down computer systems for thousands of organizations, including banks, airlines, supermarkets, and fuel providers.
The Crowdstrike outage is related to Microsoft Azure network servers. According to reports, this is the greatest IT outage in history.
Crowdstrike is also a major sponsor and data security supplier for the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One team, with the IT firm's Falcon data analytics tools used to evaluate the millions of data points collected during testing and racing competitions.
But how does this connection and service disruption affect Mercedes-Benz passenger vehicles? In brief, no. It does not appear that your Mercedes-Benz will be affected, even if it requires over-the-air or internet-based communication capabilities. So, there is nothing to worry about. Your Mercedes is fine.
The Mercedes Me's internet connectivity capabilities rely on various third-party software products from Google and others; however, it is identified as employing Apache data services rather than Microsoft Azure technologies.
Crowdstrike was just the seventh largest contributor to the Mercedes AMG F1 team's yearly sponsorship earnings of $US167 million ($AU249 million) in 2023.
It is trailing naming rights sponsor and petroleum major Petronas (at $US65 million/$AU97 million), automobile brand Ineos, sports brand Puma, and watch brand IWC Schaffhausen. In 2021, the corporation gave $US4 million ($AU6 million) to the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Team.
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