On Friday, July 19th, businesses worldwide faced a major IT outage, disrupting financial services, doctors’ offices and TV broadcasters. Air travel was significantly impacted, with flights grounded, services delayed and airports issuing advice to passengers.
The outage originated from a significant disruption at cybersecurity giant CrowdStrike following a recent tech update.
CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz stated the company is “actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts,” clarifying that Mac and Linux hosts were unaffected.
He assured that: This is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed.
Additionally, Microsoft cloud services were restored after an outage, although many users continued to report issues. CrowdStrike shares closed down 11% following the events.
This incident raises serious questions for CrowdStrike, a leading provider of security software to large companies, including Microsoft. There may be increased scrutiny from Microsoft users regarding measures to prevent such significant outages in the future.
The situation also highlights concerns for anyone dependent on IT products from the powerful tech oligopoly. Over-reliance on a single system creates vulnerability to a “single point of failure” underscoring the need for redundancy and backup systems to ensure resilience in critical digital infrastructure.
Thankfully, emergency services, hospitals, air traffic control, utilities and government departments remained largely unaffected, which is reassuring. However, for other sectors, the global disruption caused by routine IT maintenance raises profound questions about the reliability of the software underpinning the modern world.
At Dasuni, we understand the importance of a comprehensive disaster recovery plan. Our effective disaster recovery and business continuity solutions are designed to prevent and mitigate the impact of such disruptions. We implement redundancy, regular backups and rapid recovery protocols to ensure your business remains resilient and operational, no matter what.
If you’re worried about your business being affected by such IT disruptions, contact Dasuni. Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest cybersecurity insights and updates.
