A technical outage affecting Microsoft systems on Friday morning affected millions of people around the world.
WAAY 31 reached out to cyber experts to understand what we went through and how businesses can move forward.
John Zenphenig, an assistant professor at Alabama A&M University, called the global technology outage a catastrophic event.
“Basically there were two patches, a Windows patch and a CrowdStrike patch, and they were released very close together in time, so they conflicted and broke Windows,” Zehnpfennig said.
He said CrowdStrike is a very popular software and many companies and institutions use it in their operations.
So when CrowdStrike went down, chaos ensued.
“The reason this is a global issue is because CrowdStrike is known as the best in defense software. That’s why it’s a global issue, because major airlines, governments, government agencies use CrowdStrike for defense because it’s so good at stopping viruses and criminal attacks,” Zehnpfennig said.
He said there wasn’t much individuals could do, but businesses had to prepare for the unthinkable.
“You have to have a plan.”
Jay Towne of Grey Analytics says we need to be proactive and recognize that a situation like this can have a major impact on the things we take for granted every day.
“The time to develop a plan isn’t after chaos has occurred, but to have the plan securely tucked away in a cargo pocket so that it can be deployed quickly when chaos occurs and ensure operations can continue as best as possible,” Town said.
Jay said the company will grow from this in the future.
“We are not going to back down when it comes to our reliance on the internet, on digital means, on software and on cyber,” he added.
