Key findings
- Microsoft is working with security firms to prevent future incidents like CrowdStrike, with a focus on protecting each other's customers.
- Topics for discussion include performance requirements, tamper protection, collaboration principles, and secure-by-design goals.
- Microsoft is committed to joining forces with competitors to improve security and ensure stability for businesses.
After the CrowdStrike incident caused blue screens around the world (and its president won an “Epic Fail” award at Def Con), Microsoft was pretty worried that a similar problem could happen again in the future. Because if Windows becomes known as an unstable system, companies are unlikely to use it for their infrastructure anymore. So Microsoft brought together some security firms to discuss how to prevent something like this from happening again, and they just came to a conclusion.
Microsoft is drawing up a plan to prevent another CrowdStrike-like situation
According to the Windows Experience blog, Microsoft has “brought together a diverse group of endpoint security vendors and government officials from the US and Europe to discuss strategies to improve resilience and protect the critical infrastructure of our mutual customers,” which means “we really never want to cause another blue screen of important corporate computers.” Microsoft says the ideal solution is for Microsoft and interested security firms to share their practices and agree on a standard to prevent another CrowdStrike.
Microsoft stated that it had covered the following with the security firms:
- Performance requirements and challenges outside of kernel mode
- Tamper protection for security products
- Requirements for safety sensors
- Principles of development and collaboration between Microsoft and the ecosystem
- Secure-by-design goals for future platforms
In an interesting final point, Microsoft explained how security companies would do much better if they joined forces to keep things running smoothly. The company explained, “We are competitors, we are not adversaries,” and if there really is an “enemy” in the equation, it is the people that security companies protect companies from. By bringing everyone under one standard, companies can actually feel more secure that their security solutions are not compromising their stability for the sake of competition.