How to Protect Your MSP From a CrowdStrike or Similar Issue

It’s been all over the news recently, so today we’re going be covering what happened with the CrowdStrike issue and how being in our cloud can help you in the case of similar incidents!

The CrowdStrike Issue, Summarized

For anyone that isn’t in the know yet or needs a quick summary, CrowdStrike, a third-party security provider, downloaded a update to their software that had a bug in it that ended up crashing Windows servers and causing a variety of issues for users.

The biggest issue with the incident was how it had to be fixed. Since the bugged update was blue screening the servers, reset servers were not coming back connected to the internet, meaning that users were unable to apply the fix of deleting the bugged file.

The usable fix required users to be in front of the computer physically and boot it into safe mode, delete the offending file, then reboot the server: this led to the server booting up clean and working properly again.

The fix requiring an on-premise solution ended up being the most difficult part!  Without a properly set up cloud solution, users couldn’t apply the update to their servers remotely, as they weren’t booting to a point where they were accessible.

How the Cloud is a Solution

This whole situation is a good example of cloud and what it provides as an advantage. We had several partners in our cloud that were CrowdStrike users, allowing them to go in remotely to those virtual servers, apply the boot in safe mode, delete the necessary file, and restart without having to physically be in front of anything!

Instead of it being an hours or days type of a problem, it was a 15 minute problem from issue to solution. That’s a huge difference. This issue was unfortunately a painful example of what can happen when you don’t have customers in the cloud and the complications that can arise with physical servers.

Having a cloud solution and virtualized machines gave the clients we mentioned earlier the ability to access and resolve the problem without having to be anywhere near their customer’s locations. Yeah.

The Difference Between Our Cloud and Our Competitors

The reality is that not every cloud service provider gives you the access level necessary to be able to fix a problem like this.

As far as putting your customers into a cloud service provider like Cloud Services for MSPs, it does a lot of things that would help you with an issue like this, but it also does a lot of things to help you to grow your MSP and to increase your monthly recurring revenue!

Our quote today is from Oprah Winfrey: “Turn your wounds into wisdom.”  We’ve all learned from this issue, and we hope this blog has helped you to conceptualize the ways that the cloud can turn a significant issue into a quick fix. Thanks for reading!