Reflections on the CrowdStrike Outage: Strengthening Incident Response and Business Continuity Plans

The CrowdStrike outage affecting approximately 8.5 million computers globally serves as a significant wake-up call regarding infrastructure vulnerabilities in interconnected digital systems. This incident offers critical lessons for organizational incident response and business continuity planning.

Scale and Widespread Impact

The massive scope of this disruption underscores how vendor dependencies can cascade into systemic failures affecting countless organizations simultaneously. When a widely-deployed security tool fails, the impact extends far beyond any single organization’s control.

This reality demands that incident response plans address not just internal failures but external dependencies that can disrupt operations without warning.

Resource Constraints During Mass Outages

When recovery efforts happen at scale, infrastructure becomes bottlenecked. During the CrowdStrike incident:

• Cloud resources experienced strain as organizations attempted simultaneous interventions
• Volume snapshots and mounts created disk I/O bottlenecks across regions
• Recovery timelines extended as shared infrastructure struggled under load

Response plans must account for these competing demands. Assuming unlimited resource availability during widespread incidents leads to unrealistic recovery expectations.

Broadened Risk Assessment

Not all significant outages stem from cyberattacks. The CrowdStrike incident resulted from a software update failure, not malicious activity—yet the business impact rivaled many breach scenarios.

Organizations should develop response procedures addressing diverse disruption sources:

• Vendor software failures
• Infrastructure outages
• Supply chain disruptions
• Natural disasters
• Cyberattacks

Narrow focus on security incidents leaves organizations unprepared for other disruption categories.

Scalability of Recovery Procedures

Manual intervention approaches—like the suggested safe-mode boot and file deletion—proved insufficient at scale. Organizations with thousands of affected endpoints couldn’t realistically execute manual recovery on each device within acceptable timeframes.

The incident highlighted the value of:

• Automated recovery mechanisms
• Bootable recovery images (like WinPE) for mass deployment
• Remote remediation capabilities
• Scalable intervention procedures

Recovery procedures designed for individual incidents don’t scale to mass events.

BitLocker Key Management Gaps

Many organizations struggled locating BitLocker recovery keys during the incident, significantly delaying restoration. This highlighted critical gaps:

• Key escrow procedures were incomplete or outdated
• Recovery key access during emergencies wasn’t tested
• Documentation of encrypted systems was inadequate

Encryption key management strategies must:

• Ensure keys remain accessible during emergencies
• Include regular testing of key retrieval procedures
• Document encrypted systems comprehensively
• Provide multiple access pathways when primary systems are unavailable

Lessons for Planning

Leverage Real-World Incidents

Use events like the CrowdStrike outage as learning opportunities:

• Review what would have happened in your environment
• Identify gaps the incident would have exposed
• Update procedures based on lessons learned

Conduct Tabletop Exercises

Simulated scenarios help teams practice response procedures before real incidents occur. Learn more about what tabletop exercises involve. Exercises should include:

• Vendor dependency failures
• Mass endpoint recovery scenarios
• Communication procedures during widespread outages
• Escalation and decision-making processes

Test Recovery Procedures

Documented procedures that haven’t been tested are assumptions, not capabilities. Regular testing validates:

• Recovery timelines are realistic
• Required resources are available
• Staff know their responsibilities
• Procedures work as documented

Adapt Continuously

Security and operational environments change constantly. Incident response and business continuity plans require regular updates reflecting:

• New technologies and dependencies
• Organizational changes
• Lessons from real incidents and exercises
• Evolving threat landscape

Building Resilience

The CrowdStrike incident demonstrates that resilience requires more than security tools. Organizations need:

• Comprehensive incident response planning addressing diverse scenarios
• Business continuity procedures tested at realistic scale
• Vendor dependency mapping and contingency planning
• Regular exercises validating documented procedures

Proactive preparedness outperforms reactive response every time.

Ready to strengthen your incident response and business continuity capabilities? Contact Breach Craft to discuss tabletop exercises, policy reviews, and Virtual CISO services.