What can payroll professionals learn from the CrowdStrike global outage?

Chances are you’ve either been impacted by, or at least heard about, the recent CrowdStrike global outage.

Last week, one of the world's largest cybersecurity providers, CrowdStrike, released an update which resulted in mass disruption, impacting businesses around the world.

What exactly happened?

George Kurtz, Chief Executive at CrowdStrike, stated the outage was caused by a “defect in a single content update for Windows hosts”.

Essentially, the software update pushed out to customers was flawed.

The bug caused many Microsoft Windows PCs to either crash or display a blue error screen, also known as the “blue screen of death”.

To help set minds at ease, during an interview, Kurtz confirmed the incident was not a cyberattack but rather a sensor configuration which triggered a logic error.

What was the scale of the outage? 

Simply put, the impact was massive.

Around the globe, many businesses were unable to access key databases or take digital payments, while banks, supermarkets and other major institutions also faced disruption.

The majority of GP practices experienced disruption and ambulance services reported an increase in 999 and 111 calls from patients unable to contact other NHS providers, according to NHS England.

Advice for payroll professionals

We consulted our Senior Product Director of Payroll and Managed Services, Fran Williams, to get his thoughts on the situation.

Williams advised: “Keep updated by regularly checking status updates from your internal IT teams and payroll provider(s) and staying in close contact with your support teams.

“Also, keep employees informed about any payroll processing issues or delays to maintain transparency.

“Don't forget to back up and securely store any manually processed data for future input into the payroll system.

“Looking ahead, developing a robust payroll contingency plan is essential. This plan should include clear communication strategies, defined roles & responsibilities during outages and training for your team on handling these situations. 

“Further, it’s crucial for businesses to conduct regular IT audits, identifying any vulnerabilities and implementing security measures to bolster your defences against unexpected outages.

“Training staff to manage and respond to IT incidents effectively can significantly reduce downtime and help maintain operational continuity. 

“This incident highlights the importance of regularly reviewing your technology infrastructure and business continuity plans.

“Using a single software provider and leveraging cloud-based solutions can help mitigate such risks.” 

Current state of the outage

According to CrowdStrike, a “significant” number of devices are back online following the incident.

They also announced that they're testing a technique to reboot systems more rapidly.

However, experts warn a full recovery could take weeks.

In the meantime, Williams confirmed: “IRIS Software Group’s payroll products are fully operational and unaffected, ensuring that our customers experience no disruptions from the software itself. However, due to the IT outage, some support services may experience delays, as a limited number of our employees are currently unable to access our IT infrastructure.

Easing staff concerns

Ultimately, should this outage (or any future problems) cause issues for payroll professionals and delays in paying employees, the focus, alongside restarting operations, should be on supporting staff and easing concerns.

Let's face it, nobody wants to miss a payday.

However, these situations often remain out of the control of payroll professionals.

Going forward, the best thing you can do is ensure open lines of communication to ease the worries staff will no doubt feel.

After all, people are the heart of any business, and as such, they must be the key focus.