Crowdstrike Global IT Outage: Key Lessons for Small Businesses

On July 19, 2024, CrowdStrike released a faulty content configuration update for its Falcon Windows sensor, causing a Windows system crash.
Microsoft estimated that the update affected fewer than 1% of all Windows machines, around 8.5 million devices. This incident has been described as the most significant IT outage in history, resulting in an estimated loss of about $5 billion.

Many small businesses could not access critical services essential for their operations, such as payment processing terminals, email services, and inventory tracking and management.

The initial fix recommended by Crowdstrike and Microsoft required administrative access and Windows administration experience, which most solopreneurs and small businesses lack.

Solopreneurs and small businesses should engage the services of an IT consultant like Techity Consulting to establish an incident response plan and a disaster recovery plan in case of future service disruptions.

While it's impossible to plan for every scenario, implementing preventive measures like regular backups, diversifying software dependencies, prioritizing software updates, monitoring system performance, and developing comprehensive disaster recovery plans can help mitigate the impact of future IT disruptions.

If you want to make your business more disaster-proof, book a free discovery call with us today and let us help you prepare!