Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past week, you’re probably well aware of the worldwide outage that occurred last Friday effecting millions of Windows users and causing disruptions for airlines, healthcare facilities, banks and more.
CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity technology company that provides endpoint protection and cyberattack response services to numerous Fortune 500 companies was behind the outage which was linked to a software glitch.
The update that was pushed out Friday was supposed to just enable sensors on Windows devices to detect new potential threats, but instead knocked systems offline around the world. CrowdStrike utilizes an update mechanism they call “Rapid Response Content” which is supposed to react to threats in real time and push updates out to respond to those threats. As we know, time is of the essence with cybersecurity especially with Zero Day attacks.
Instead of addressing threats though, a defect in the update caused an outage that has cost airlines in particular $860 million in losses during the course of the outage. Airlines even resorted to writing flight times on whiteboard in airports for travelers who had no access to flight information during the outage. Affected devices all displayed the infamous blue screen of death.
Photo courtesy of Reddit user u/New_Fault_1002.
It’s also being reported that cyber insurers are expected to only cover 10 to 20 percent of the costs associated with this outage, leaving much of the financial burden on companies still trying to recover from the disruption the outage caused to their business.
The bittersweet news behind this outage is that companies with cloud facing options for their data recovered much more easily than businesses dependent on physical devices. For the example the healthcare sector, which despite the overwhelming coverage airports have received was the hardest hit with $1.94 billion in losses anticipated so far. Companies that could access unaffected devices to reach the data they had stored in the cloud were able to resume business as usual much quicker than those dependent on hard copy data found only on their Windows devices.
CrowdStrike has pledged to keep an outage created by an update glitch from happening again by taking a more staggered approach to their updates by not having every user receive the same update all at once and also by having a more thorough process to vet updates before they go live.
However, the fate of the company and its ability to rebound after such a critical failure is unknown at this point and they're not winning any favors with a measly $10 gift card being offered as a "sorry" for the outage.
For us at Valley Techlogic, the outcome of relying on having all of your “data eggs” in one basket is unsurprising. We have long been proponents of taking a layered approach to backups, two is good and three is better. Our backup service, TechVault, is included with all our service plans. If you would like to learn more, reach out today for a consultation.
Looking for more to read? We suggest these other articles from our site.
-
4 Ways to Secure Your IoT (Internet of Things) Devices
-
When is the best time to buy a new laptop? Plus our top laptop picks by category for 2024
-
Are IT audits part of your technology business planning? 5 tips for completing a technology audit on your business
-
Ransomware attack brings down auto dealers across the country, bringing car sales to a halt
-
Our top 10 best tricks for using Microsoft Outlook every user should know
This article was powered by Valley Techlogic, leading provider of trouble free IT services for businesses in California including Merced, Fresno, Stockton & More. You can find more information at https://www.valleytechlogic.com/ or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/valleytechlogic/ . Follow us on Twitter at https://x.com/valleytechlogic and LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/valley-techlogic-inc/.
