In July 2024, the ‘CrowdStrike incident‘ hit Windows devices worldwide like a plague, rendering them useless as they were stuck in endless boot loops or faced the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD). It affected airlines, news channels, and other domains that are crucial to infrastructure. It was pretty big news, to say the least.
That said, the issue was resolved, but it did raise the question, and rightfully so: How could a multi-million dollar company let such an issue get past them? Millions of devices and businesses rely on Windows devices to operate and manage their daily work.
So, Microsoft has finally come forth with an initiative to ensure a problem of such magnitude would never happen again.
What is Microsoft’s solution for handling CrowdStrike-like issues in the future?
A recent article on Windows’s Experience Blog discussed Microsoft’s goal and findings of the recently hosted Windows Endpoint Security Ecosystem Summit, which “brought together a diverse group of endpoint security vendors and government officials from the U.S. and Europe to discuss strategies for improving resiliency and protecting our mutual customers’ critical infrastructure”.
The post went on to explain that Microsoft proposed that the security firms and themselves need more transparency on how they approach SDP and deploy updates to settle on a standard for all to follow.
They also discussed “how Microsoft and partners can increase testing of critical components, improve joint compatibility testing across diverse configurations, drive better information sharing on in-development and in-market product health, and increase incident response effectiveness with tighter coordination and recovery procedures”.
In the summit with these security firms, Microsoft also covered the following topics:
- Performance needs and challenges outside of kernel mode
- Anti-tampering protection for security products
- Security sensor requirements
- Development and collaboration principles between Microsoft and the ecosystem
- Secure-by-design goals for future platform
Lastly, they ended the summit on a strong note with a powerful message. They said: “We’re competitors, we’re not adversaries. The adversaries are the ones we need to protect the world from.” So, it seems like disaster has brought them together to face potential threads bigger than all.
