In the ever-evolving world of cybersecurity, crises are inevitable.
Today, the industry has witnessed a significant incident involving CrowdStrike and a Windows outage. And while it is not a cyber security breach, it has the potential to erode trust in both the company and potentially the wider cyber security industry. Aside from fixing the issue as quickly as possible, effective crisis communications from CrowdStrike is paramount. But the rest of the industry also needs to play its part in ensuring organisations don’t lose faith in the industry and that means communicating responsibly, not pointing fingers and providing useful advice to companies that are affected.
Understanding the Crisis
A massive IT outage has caused chaos worldwide, with major banks, media outlets and airlines affected by issues relating to CrowdStrike’s Falcon Sensor Platform. The mass outages are predicted to be the “largest in history”, with NHS appointments being cancelled.
The outage primarily affects Windows devices and servers globally. Microsoft issued an update that it was investigating an issue “impacting users’ ability to access various Microsoft 365 apps and services.”
Initial Response
The first rule in crisis communications is to respond quickly and transparently.
CEO and Founder of CrowdStrike, George Kurtz, has released a statement on social media that “CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts. The issue has been identified, isolated, and a fix has been deployed.”
Analysis and learning
The problem has happened, and it could happen to any cyber security vendor. It is already having an effect on CrowdStrike share value and the only way it can get through this is by sorting out the issue as quickly as possible. But that in itself is not enough. It needs to gain back customer trust and it is crisis communications that will do that.
Customers globally need to believe that CrowdStrike is being open and honest. They need to believe that they have done everything they can to sort it out and crucially need to know they will take steps to try and ensure it doesn’t happen again.
Importance of clear, concise and consistent communication:
- Provide Quick, Frequent Updates.
- If you are not sure about something, don’t say it. Update on what you know
- Reassure affected parties that you’re supporting them and taking action
- Be honest
- Acknowledge the issues it is causing people.
- Have a main spokesperson
- Say sorry
CrowdStrike appears to be doing these things – it has already acknowledged (quickly) it was an update and have rolled out a fix.
For live updates on the issue visit: https://www.techradar.com/news/live/windows-outage-july-2024-live
Image credit: Pavlo Gonchar / SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images
