Millions of businesses worldwide were hit by a global IT outage on Friday, with some still struggling to fully restore their systems. An estimated 8.5 million Microsoft Windows PC devices were affected by the update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, causing mass delays for airports, broadcasters, hospitals and businesses. The faulty security update caused Microsoft Windows computers to crash around the world, and is described as the ‘most serious IT outage the world has ever seen. CrowdStrike – the company behind Falcon – is ‘actively working with customers’ who are affected, but insists it is ‘not a security incident or cyberattack’.
Problems came to light quickly after the latest version of CrowdStrikes Falcon sensor software was rolled out on Friday. The update was meant to make systems more secure against hacking but instead caused devices to display a “blue screen of death” due to faulty code. IT disruptions can have a major impact on businesses, disrupting technology systems and failing to meet business and customer needs. Stephen Johnson, CEO and founder of Quality Engineering consultancy Roq, said businesses need to prepare for unprecedented crises early on to mitigate the impacts on brand reputation and customer confidence. “The global outage, affecting banks, airlines, and television channels, underscores the immediate impact such failures have on brand reputation, customer satisfaction, and revenue,” he said. “In 2024, organisations must intensify their efforts to protect their customers.
“To counteract these trends, it is imperative that organisations embed quality deeply into their operational psyche and apply it to technology delivery right from the start. By identifying and managing these risks early on, organisations can prevent issues before they impact customers.” Tim Armandpour, CTO of PagerDuty said businesses should prioritise building digital infrastructure and streamlining processes to reduce the impact of IT disasters on day-to-day operations. “The IT outage news is a reminder that the volume and impact radius of incidents continues to grow,” he said. “Both people and software are imperfect, so it is not a matter of ‘if’ you will experience an incident but ‘when’ it will happen.
“We are in the midst of this global incident, and we will likely learn that because technology is complicated, it needs constant attention and investment. Being intentional in advancing your organisation’s operational maturity from reactive to proactive, and in building resilience and redundancy into both your company’s technical infrastructure and operations process, can make a material difference in your ability to manage. We are seeing today that tomorrow is too late. Organisations need to start today to automate their operations, streamline processes and reinforce their digital infrastructure.”
Alan Stephenson-Brown, CEO of Evolve emphasised the need for businesses to have preventative measures in place and protect IT systems to ensure functionality in worst-case scenarios. He said: “News of a global IT outage that has caused problems at airlines, media and banks is a timely reminder that operational resilience should be at the forefront of the business agenda. Demonstrating that even large corporations aren’t immune to IT troubles, this outage highlights the importance of having distributed data centres and rerouting connectivity that ensures business can continue functioning when cloud infrastructure is disrupted. By prioritising both contingency planning and preventative measures, IT systems can be protected. I urge business leaders to seriously appraise the systems they have in place to identify potential vulnerabilities before they find themselves the subject of the next IT outages headline.”
