The disruptions last month affected industries and users of Microsoft 365 apps worldwide. Cast as the largest IT outage in history, CrowdStrike disrupted critical services and highlighted the vulnerabilities inherent in our reliance on centralized cybersecurity solutions.

Here are some key steps to protect your IT infrastructure from comparable outages:

Diversify Your Security Solutions:

• Multi-layered approach: Don’t rely solely on one security provider. Implement a multi-layered security strategy that combines different tools and vendors. This approach helps ensure that if one system fails, others are still in place to protect your infrastructure.

• Regular security audits: Conduct frequent security assessments to identify potential vulnerabilities in your systems and address them proactively.

Implement Robust Backup and Recovery Strategies:

• Comprehensive backup plan: Maintain regular, comprehensive backups of all critical data and systems. This ensures that even in the event of a major outage, you can quickly restore your operations.

• Disaster recovery planning: Develop and regularly test a detailed disaster recovery plan that outlines steps to be taken in various scenarios, including major outages or security breaches.

Enhance System Resilience:

• Redundancy: Implement redundant systems and failover mechanisms to ensure business continuity in case of primary system failures.

• Update management: Keeping your systems updated is crucial. Consider implementing a staged rollout process for updates which will allow you to test updates on a small subset of systems before deploying them company-wide.

Improve Incident Response:

• Incident response team: Establish a dedicated incident response team trained to handle various IT emergencies.

• Communication protocols: Develop clear communication protocols for notifying stakeholders and coordinating response efforts during an incident.

Invest in Employee Training:

• Security awareness: Regularly train employees on cybersecurity best practices and how to identify potential threats.

• Incident response training: Ensure key personnel are trained on your incident response procedures.

Consider Cloud Diversification:

• Multi-cloud strategy: Consider distributing your workloads across multiple cloud providers to reduce dependency on a single platform.

Regular Testing and Drills:

• Simulated outages: Conduct regular drills simulating various outage scenarios to test your response capabilities and identify areas for improvement.

By implementing these measures, you can improve IT resilience and be better prepared to handle potential disruptions or security incidents. Remember, the key is to adopt a proactive, comprehensive approach to IT security and disaster recovery.

Need help protecting your business communications? Contact CTS today at 800.787.4848 or jnolte@ctsmd.us.