On July 18, CrowdStrike, an independent cybersecurity company, released a software update that began disrupting IT systems globally. The impact was particularly felt across the Microsoft ecosystem, and it was reported that the digital meltdown crippled 8.5 million Windows devices globally.

While this accounts for less than one percent of all Windows machines, the single software update caused widespread disruptions, affecting hospitals, airports, stock exchanges, airlines, banks, and supermarkets globally. This outage has once again highlighted the risks associated with relying on third parties and is another example of the true impact and scale of what can happen when a minor update causes a major outage.

As soon as Avanade became aware of the situation, we mobilized our Crisis Management Committee to address the outages and provide dedicated support for our clients. This team worked closely with Accenture, who was responding to this incident on a global basis, and our own Global Incident Team.

Following a thorough assessment of the situation, our dedicated Support Team worked diligently to implement the trusted fixes for our clients. The process involved several key steps:

From Chaos to Control: Avanade’s Experience During the CrowdStrike Outage