The Microsoft Outage Caused by CrowdStrike – What Happened?
The global Microsoft IT outage caused by CrowdStrike that occurred last Friday 19th of July sent the world into chaos, with flights cancelled, tv stations unable to broadcast, and hospital systems disrupted, affecting an estimated 8.5million systems worldwide. We understand this incident has caused significant concern. Thankfully, the outage did not affect Intuity’s customers, but it’s still important to understand and discuss how this incident occurred.
Who is responsible for the outage?
Firstly, it’s important to note this incident was not the result of a deliberate malicious cyberattack. Although the outage largely affected Microsoft Windows systems, it was not caused by Microsoft. The party responsible for the outage was an independent cyber security firm called CrowdStrike. On Friday the 19th July CrowdStrike released an update to their Falcon program for Windows systems.
What was the purpose of the update?
The purpose of this update was to improve cybersecurity protection against new cyber threats. However, bugs in the code of the update file caused many users to experience crashes and what is known as the “blue screen of death”. It’s important to understand that these kinds of updates are routine, they happen every day, even multiple times per day. New cyber threats emerge all the time and these updates are required to detect and analyse new threats and protect against vulnerabilities.
How common are update issues?
Issues with updates like this are not unusual. However, the reason why the CrowdStrike incident had such a significant and apparent impact is because so many high-profile organisations and essential services were affected. Over half of all Fortune 500 companies rely on CrowdStrike software. Although an estimated 8.5 million devices were affected, this accounts for less than one percent of all Windows machines.
Can you rely on technology?
Technology is not perfect, and no provider is immune from update issues. While software updates may occasionally cause disruptions, major incidents like the CrowdStrike event are infrequent. Unfortunately, unexpected issues occur, and their repercussions can be far-reaching and cause a huge amount of uncertainty. For example, one of the major contributors to the impact of this incident was the “blue screen of death” error which required IT staff to physically be at the affected machine to correct it. In recent years, the trend towards remote technical support has become commonplace, so many IT support organisations struggled with dispatching onsite resources, leading to delays in recovering from this event.
How can you prepare for such unexpected circumstances?
As organisations have become accustomed to remote IT management and fixes, the events of last Friday serve as stark reminder that organisations need to be prepared for even the most extraordinary events. If last Friday’s outage has made you think about how your organisations can be better prepared for unforeseen circumstances, it might be time to think about creating or updating your Business Continuity Plan and Disaster Recovery Plan.
Intuity is here to help. Our team would be happy to guide you through the process of creating/updating, assessing, refining or strengthening your Business Continuity Plan and Disaster Recovery Plan.
We are here to be your proactive IT and resilience support partner.
If you’d like to know more, contact us here or call us on 0818 987 900.
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