Microsoft Says Its New Initiative Can Prevent Another CrowdStrike-Like Outage

Microsoft on Tuesday announced it finally has the right tools to prevent Windows machines from becoming unresponsive if another CrowdStrike-scale event were to happen. At the Ignite 2024 conference, Microsoft launched a new Windows Resiliency Initiative that is aimed to improve Windows security and reliability, making it easier for users to recover PCs after they have suffered an outage similar to the one caused by a CrowdStrike bug.

According to the company, the new Initiative includes core changes to Windows, so recovering a machine becomes easier than ever. A new Quick Machine Recovery feature will allow IT admins to quickly recover and fix targeted systems remotely in incidents involving failed boots. It also uses the enhanced Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE) to help speed up the recovery process.

“In a future event, hopefully that never happens, we could push out [an update] from Windows Update to this Recovery Environment that says delete this file for everyone,” The Verge quoted David Weston, vice president of enterprise and OS security at Microsoft as saying in an interview. 

It also contains platform improvements for Windows to offer better controls over what applications and drivers can run and to allow anti-virus applications to work outside of kernel mode so that PCs can undergo thorough checks. Since CrowdStrike's software runs at Windows' kernel level, it is working with Microsoft Virus Initiative (MVI) partners to allow their software run outside it to avoid false detection.

What was the CrowdStrike outage?

July saw hundreds of thousands of Windows-based devices crash at once, leading to massive disruptions across industries, including hospitality, aviation, broadcasting, cyber-security, supermarkets, banking, and medical. While initially the cause was unknown, a thorough investigation found that a faulty update from cyber-security firm CrowdStrike knocked off connected PCs and servers, forcing them into a recovery boot loop for hours. The outage impacted several markets, including India, Asia, Australia, Europe, and the Americas.