Last Friday, on the 19th of July, employees of firms using MicroSoft365 enjoyed a relaxing break from their work as their systems displayed the blue screen of death. On the other side, the firm responsible scrambled to deploy their disaster recovery plan to minimize downtime and losses.
Many people are still unaware of the firm that caused this outage, much less the reason behind it. The company responsible for one of the biggest tech crashes of the century was CrowdStrike, a US-based cybersecurity company.
From being a well-reputed firm that secured a tech giant to suddenly having the spotlight on them for the wrong reasons. So, what can CrowdStrike do for reputation management after the security breach?
These are two of the many procedures the firm can adopt for better reputation management.
The first step, which was to lighten harsh public opinion by delivering a clear statement on the matter and highlighting a response strategy, was taken immediately. In a situation of this size, where many stakeholders were affected, the firm worked overtime to resolve the issue.
Now that the system is back up and running, the points highlighted below are the next steps to restoring the reputation of the firm.
Prepare for Upcoming Lawsuits
Being responsible for the most widespread tech outage that grounded planes is not a good look. It surely will not be seen positively in the eyes of the law.
The biggest detail that will be highlighted is the fact that the CEO, George Kutz, was also the CTO for McAfee during its crash in 2010. This eventually led to Intel acquiring McAfee a couple of months later.
Senior executives will be put in front of Congress to answer questions on endpoint security, deployment strategy, testing, and many other components. The firm must have started preparing their employees for the same.
Invest Heavily in Remediation Measures
CrowdStrike was the platinum standard of security, and now their credibility has been tarnished. The positive aspect of this is the opportunity to learn.
Many people have heard of their name, and now the step forward is to make them slowly forget it. Luckily, this will happen on its own. Most people do not remember SolarWinds or Kaseya.
The important stakeholders are the clients, who are first looking for a solution to the issue, which has mostly been rectified. Secondly, they wish to understand what the firm will do to prevent a similar situation from occurring again.
Finally, they might require an update on the testing of all security measures to find the remaining chinks in the armor. By investing heavily in remediation measures, the firm can slowly build a positive reputation and go back into the shadows.
