The Hidden Dangers Lurking Online: What You Need to Know About Cyber Security!

In July, we saw the world’s largest IT outage in history. Windows crashes were reported on a massive scale with estimates in the range of 7 to 8 million PCs affected. Thousands of flights cancelled or delayed, banks closed, hospitals shut down for hours, the list goes on. Many people are still left scratching their heads thinking, what really happened and what does this mean for me? To understand this, we must take a close look at a specialized piece of software from a cybersecurity company called CrowdStrike. CrowdStrike is one of the largest cybersecurity companies in the industry and offers extremely advanced software solutions. One of the main drawbacks of such advanced software is how closely it works with your operating system. CrowdStrike’s Falcon product is very tightly integrated with the Windows operating system and because of this, any error with the software can spell trouble for your whole system. This is precisely what happened last month. A faulty update from CrowdStrike was pushed to millions of Windows machines all of which immediately crashed. This one mistake shut down nearly all operations for thousands of businesses and organizations across the world.

So, what does this mean for the average user? In truth, the average user will not be impacted long term from this. You may have had a flight delayed or been unable to access your bank for a day but other than that, most people will forget this incident within a few weeks. However, the same cannot be said for the IT world. This event has caused many to take a long, hard look at how we do things. As an industry, having a dependence on one company for security has proved to be devastating in this situation. There is a good reason that this has been dubbed “The largest IT outage in history”. CrowdStrike Falcon is a very effective and advanced piece of software when it comes to endpoint protection and as

such, is very popular. If nothing else, this has reminded us of the importance of competition. We all know the phrase “Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket” and this has been a perfect example of what happens when we as an industry don’t follow that adage.

We may not know the full extent of the damages from this incident for a while but for now it has been estimated that potentially billions of dollars have been lost due to the outage. The long-term impact is still up in the air, but for CrowdStrike, the repercussions were immediate. In one day, their stock fell by nearly 10% and is still recovering. Undoubtedly lawsuits will follow. The one upside to this situation is that CrowdStrike and the IT industry have learned valuable lessons. Sometimes lessons come easy, but from this experience we had to learn the hard way – through experience.

To address the issues highlighted in the article and mitigate similar risks in the future, consider proposing the following solutions:

1. Diversify Security Solutions: Organizations should avoid relying on a single cybersecurity provider. By implementing solutions from multiple vendors, businesses can reduce their vulnerability to systemic failures and enhance their overall security posture.

2. Regularly Test and Validate Updates: Implement rigorous testing protocols for updates and patches before they are deployed broadly. This includes staging updates in a controlled environment to identify potential issues and prevent widespread disruptions.

3. Enhance Incident Response Plans: Develop and maintain robust incident response plans that outline clear steps for addressing and recovering from IT outages. Regularly review and update these plans to ensure they account for emerging threats and technological changes.

4. Invest in Redundancy and Failover Systems: Build redundancy into critical systems and infrastructure to minimize downtime. Employ failover systems that can take over in the event of a failure, ensuring continuity of operations even during outages.

5. Foster Industry Collaboration: Encourage collaboration and information sharing among cybersecurity firms and IT professionals. By working together, the industry can better anticipate and respond to emerging threats, and collectively improve security practices.

6. Implement Comprehensive Risk Management: Conduct thorough risk assessments to identify potential vulnerabilities in your systems. Use these assessments to develop strategies that address both technical and operational risks, ensuring a more resilient IT environment.

7. Educate and Train Staff: Provide ongoing training for IT staff and end-users on best practices for cybersecurity. Awareness and education can significantly reduce the likelihood of human error contributing to security incidents.

8. Monitor and Audit Systems Continuously: Employ continuous monitoring and auditing of systems to detect and address potential issues proactively. This approach helps identify anomalies early and prevents minor problems from escalating into major disruptions.

By adopting these solutions, organizations can better prepare for and manage cybersecurity challenges, ultimately reducing the risk of future outages and enhancing their overall resilience.