In the tangled web of modern tech, even one tiny mistake can set off a chain reaction of epic proportions.
That’s exactly what went down on July 19th, when CrowdStrike accidentally caused an outage that hit around 8.5 million Microsoft devices worldwide. This wasn’t just a minor glitch; it was a full-blown disaster that revealed some serious cracks in our digital armor. Industries and businesses were once again left facing the harsh reality that our ultra-connected systems remain our biggest vulnerability.
Recapping the Incident of Decade
CrowdStrike, a global cybersecurity powerhouse valued at $33 billion, unknowingly unleashed a wave of chaos with a faulty update to its Falcon platform, a go-to cybersecurity solution for many. The update caused systems to crash hard, leading to the infamous BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) and leaving operations at a standstill across the globe.
The fallout was swift and widespread. From Japan to Europe to the U.S., industries ranging from aviation to government agencies were hit. The CrowdStrike outage dragged on for about 24 hours, though some systems took up to 72 hours to fully bounce back. Financially, the impact was brutal. CrowdStrike’s stock took a nosedive, and while the exact cost is tough to pin down, estimates put industry losses in the hundreds of millions. The aviation sector alone saw thousands of flights canceled or delayed, leading to massive financial hits and a serious blow to their reputation.
A Common Thread
But while it may have caused life-and-death situations for other critical establishments, this is hardly the first time a relatively minor update caused such international chaos in digital systems. Similar large-scale outages affecting cloud-based enterprise services have occurred through the years, each offering valuable lessons. A few notable ones include:
IBM Cloud Outage (2020) – IBM experienced a significant outage affecting its cloud services, including security offerings. As a result, it impacted numerous enterprise customers globally. The outage lasted for several hours and affected a wide range of IBM’s cloud-based services. Eventually revealed to be caused by an “incorrect” BGP routing, akin to a GPS giving wrong directions and causing data “traffic jams.”
McAfee DAT 5958 Incident (2010) – a flawed antivirus update mistakenly identified a critical Windows system file as malware, which it promptly quarantined and deleted. This then caused millions of corporate and consumer PCs to enter a continuous reboot cycle. The outage affected businesses worldwide, with some taking up to a week to fully restore operations.
Azure Active Directory Outage (2021) – what supposed to be was an innocent cross-cloud migration operation, ended up being a major outage for Microsoft’s Azure Active Director. This then affected access to many Microsoft services and third-party applications that rely on Azure AD for authentication. Enterprise security and operations were the most affected.
These incidents share common threads with the CrowdStrike case. First, they all involved disruptions to services critical for enterprise operations and security. They demonstrate how a single point of failure initiated by the service provider can have cascading effects across numerous organizations.
Evolving Responses and Practices
Throughout this period, forward-thinking analysts have developed robust IT hierarchies and practices designed to prevent and mitigate similar outages. While these challenges may be unpredictable and unintended, these measures significantly reduce the risk of causing substantial damage to digital infrastructure:
For end-users: (those affected by the issue)
- Decentralized Decision-Making – Just like Google’s SRE teams, empower your local squads to make quick calls in the heat of the moment, keeping everything running smoothly.
- Redundancy and Failover Systems – Take a cue from Amazon: build your systems with backup plans so that when one thing breaks, another jumps in to save the day.
- Enhanced Monitoring and Early Warning Systems – Be like Netflix with its Chaos Monkey. Test your systems by breaking them on purpose to spot weaknesses before they cause trouble.
- Diversification of Service Providers – Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Go multi-cloud like the pros, spreading your risk across different providers to avoid big-time outages.
- Regular Stress Testing and Disaster Recovery Drills – Channel your inner Microsoft by running regular “war games” to prepare for the unexpected and keep your response game strong.
For service providers: (those who “caused” the issue)
- Comprehensive Risk Assessment – Dive deep into the nitty-gritty, mapping out potential risks so you can spot the weak links before they snap.
- Extreme Scenario Testing – Push your systems to the edge with extreme tests, ensuring they can handle whatever wild scenarios might come their way.
- Fail-Safe Mechanisms – Layer up on fail-safes, because even when things pass the first check, you want that extra safety net to catch anything that slips through.
- Proactive Client Engagement – Stay ahead of the curve by actively engaging with clients. Know their needs, understand their risks, and tailor your game plan to keep them happy.
- Forensic Incident Analysis – When things go south, don’t just fix it. Get forensic. Dig deep to uncover the root causes, learn from them, and plug any gaps in your defenses.
- Continuous Threat Modeling – Keep your eyes on the horizon, staying ahead of emerging risks, new tech, and shifting client needs.
Blueprint for a Resilient IT Hierarchy
A resilient IT hierarchy, informed by the lessons from the CrowdStrike incident and grounded in industry best practices, should be designed to enhance agility, integration, and security, as obvious as it may sound. This not only concerns a more industrial side of the IT industry but also the more mainstream one, the consumer side. Paul Kusznirewicz from Canada (yeah, we know) sued the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. after the slot machine falsely signaled he won the jackpot when in fact – he didn’t. McPhadden Samac Merner Tuovi from Toronto handles the lawsuit, and it was a heavy one, sitting at the brink of below $45 million in total ($42,9 that the slot machine displayed as the winning amount and $3 million extra in damages). Of course, this didn’t pan out as Mr. Kusznirewicz wanted it to as this was attributed to a software error, and the best the OLG offered was a free dinner for four at their casino buffet. We’re pretty sure that after this experience, he’ll only visit Canadian online casinos rather than brick-and-mortar ones.
This again begs the question of how to mitigate such problems. By streamlining any decision-making process, response (local IT) teams become positioned to act swiftly, minimizing response times. In fact, even something as elementary as fostering a culture of continuous improvement remains essential. It encourages the integration of insights gained from past incidents and near-misses into ongoing practices. Effective communication channels are also vital, with well-defined protocols ensuring that both internal and external communications are clear and effective during emergencies, while forming a conclusion to Mr. Kusznirewicz’s story, it’s also important to stress out the testing and figuring out edge case scenarios.
Oh, and for the record, investing in emerging technologies like regenerative AI, can be another critical component, enabling predictive maintenance and early anomaly detection, which are increasingly important in today’s complex IT environments.
Perhaps most notable, the adoption of a Zero Trust security model reinforces stringent access controls and verification processes, ensuring that all system interactions are meticulously secured, further safeguarding the integrity of the IT infrastructure.
Vigilance for the Future
The CrowdStrike outage, along with the IBM Cloud, McAfee DAT 5958, and Azure AD incidents, serve as critical reminders of the vulnerabilities inherent in our current digital realms. However, they also present opportunities for businesses to reassess and strengthen their IT practices and hierarchies. By implementing decentralized decision-making structures, robust redundancy systems, proactive monitoring tools, and regular stress testing, organizations can significantly reduce their vulnerability to large-scale outages.
In the words of Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, “Our industry does not respect tradition – it only respects innovation.” Whenever incidents like the CrowdStrike flawed update occur, adaptation in IT practices and hierarchies becomes an ever-evolving lesson, a hard ledger of digital vigilance that must be kept close to the hearts of everyone within the industry.
