A senior White House cyber and tech official recently engaged with the CEO of CrowdStrike to evaluate the impact of a global IT outage and confirm that it was not the result of a malicious attack.
Deputy National Security Advisor for Cyber and Emerging Technologies, Anne Neuberger, revealed that the White House reached out to key infrastructure companies in the US to gauge the extent of the disruption caused by the outage.
CrowdStrike CEO, George Kurtz, issued an apology to customers for the worldwide IT outage triggered by a software update from the cybersecurity firm.
Neuberger disclosed during the Aspen Security Forum that she participated in cross-agency meetings to evaluate any potential effects of the outage on US government services, 911 systems, and other critical operations. However, she refrained from providing an assessment of the possible impacts on these systems.
Neuberger emphasized the importance of enhancing digital resilience not only within the systems in operation but also in the globally interconnected security systems. She highlighted the risks associated with consolidation, the need to address such consolidation, and the imperative to ensure swift containment and recovery in the event of an incident.
She stressed the necessity of ongoing efforts to fortify resilience in the face of cyber threats, underscoring the critical nature of preparedness and rapid response capabilities.
