IT CHAOS COMPANY ADVISED UK SPIES

BOSSES of the firm behind the biggest IT meltdown in history have lectured Britain's spy agency on computer safety.

- SIMON MURPHY

CrowdStrike warned of a threat from Russia or North Korea - but it was the company itself which brought down systems around the world.

What experts say is the biggest cyber-meltdown to date hit Microsoft Windows devices on Friday morning, leaving many computers displaying the dreaded blue error screen.

The outage affected GP surgeries, pharmacies, airports, card payments and railway ticket machines. The problem was caused by software designed by CrowdStrike to prevent malicious attacks - and crashes.

And just two months ago, the US internet security company sponsored Cyber UK, billed as "the Government's flagship cyber-security event", with a senior employee speaking there.

We also found a draft agenda for 2019's event, which listed Crowdstrike's participation. The firm gave a talk on how to combat hackers at the huge annual shindig, run by Britain's intelligence agency, GCHQ.

The billing for the session said: "CrowdStrike will lift the lid on the alarming new trends observed in the global threat landscape - emanating from Iran, North Korea, Russia and beyond, and discuss the evolving best practices proving most successful against criminal, hacktivist & nation-state adversaries."

We uncovered the links between the Texas-based business and Britain's intelligence chiefs as the IT shutdown caused problems for a second day.