Microsoft’s downtime on July 19, 2024🤔 Some reflections and advice on what happened today😬

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“Microsoft currently estimates that CrowdStrike’s update affected 8.5 million Windows devices, representing less than 1% of all Windows machines.”

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Microsoft’s downtime on July 19, 2024, highlights several key points, revealing that even tech giants like Microsoft can face significant disruptions, affecting multiple critical services.

The impact on productivity and the economic losses suffered by affected organizations demonstrate the importance of resilience, where rapid recovery is essential to avoid negative impacts, emphasizing the need for robust infrastructures and effective contingency plans.

At the same time, the rushed changes to restore systems after the incident could lead to usual security reviews not being carried out, introducing new vulnerabilities. This means attackers could take advantage of the confusion and temporary security gaps, potentially causing new incidents in the availability and/or security of critical systems in the medium and/or long term.

Organizations affected by Microsoft’s downtime should consider the following advice:

1. Provider Diversification: Avoid relying exclusively on a single provider for critical services to reduce the impact of future disruptions.

2. Robust Contingency Plans: Develop and regularly test incident response plans to ensure business continuity during interruptions.

3. Efficient Internal Communication: Establish clear and rapid communication channels to keep employees informed and minimize confusion.

4. Review SLA Agreements: Ensure that service level agreements (SLAs) with providers include adequate measures for recovery and compensation in case of downtime.

5. Data Loss: Rollbacks can revert security patches or critical configurations, exposing sensitive data.

6. Need for Thorough Reviews: It is crucial to review and secure systems after restoring service to identify and mitigate any introduced vulnerabilities.