From Forthright COO Frank Merino:

As an IT Service Provider, we understand the critical importance of maintaining the integrity and availability of our clients’ systems. The recent incident involving CrowdStrike, where a faulty update caused widespread disruptions and led to millions of Windows computers experiencing the “Blue Screen of Death”, serves as a stark reminder of the vulnerabilities that exist in our digital infrastructure.

While this incident specifically involved CrowdStrike, it is essential to recognize that tomorrow it could be your line of business application, Microsoft, or any other critical software. The question we must all ask ourselves is: Are we prepared?

Key Points to Consider:

1. Incident Response Plan: Do you have a comprehensive incident response plan in place? This plan should outline the steps to take in the event of a system failure or security breach. It is crucial to have a clear and actionable plan to minimize downtime and mitigate the impact on your operations.
2. Testing the Plan: Having an incident response plan is not enough. Regularly testing and updating the plan is vital to ensure its effectiveness. Conducting simulated incidents and drills can help identify potential weaknesses and improve response times.
3. Disaster Recovery: Traditionally, disaster recovery has focused on natural disasters such as fires and hurricanes, and more recently, ransomware attacks. However, incidents like the CrowdStrike update highlight that software failures can also be catastrophic. How prepared are you to recover from such an event?
4. Proactive Measures: Implementing proactive measures such as regular system updates, backups, and monitoring can help prevent incidents and ensure quick recovery. Staying informed about the latest security threats and best practices is essential for maintaining a robust defense.

In conclusion, the CrowdStrike incident is a wake-up call for all organizations. It underscores the need for a well-prepared and tested incident response plan. As your IT Service Provider, we are committed to helping you navigate these challenges and ensure the resilience of your systems. Remember, it’s not a matter of if, but when the next incident will occur. Are you prepared?

Assurance to Our Clients:
We want to assure our clients that Forthright and our ability to deliver our services were not impacted during this outage. Additionally, Forthright has heeded our own advice and reviewed our own solutions and the steps we would take should a similar incident occur. We can all be better because of this and should not stand by idle when we can learn from those who were impacted. We will continue to improve our services and procedures based on our findings.