By Steven Spence, SVP Customer Operations, Ntirety
Businesses around the globe experienced major disruptions to their IT stacks on July 19, 2024 due to a CrowdStrike update. Ntirety would like to take a moment to inform customers how we approached this challenge on their behalf.
The Cause of the Outage
According to CrowdStrike, the outage was caused by a defect found in a Falcon content update for Windows hosts. Ultimately, this was caused by a bug in their validation software and a process error with their Rapid Response Content release testing. CrowdStrike has pledged to improve in both of these areas.
While we’ve all experienced impact from issues around people, process, or hardware failures, for managed services providers like Ntirety, ensuring the security and stability of customers’ IT environments is the top priority. The cause of the recent global disruption highlights one of the challenges of protecting even the most secure IT systems.
The Ntirety Customer Experience
Fortunately, the CrowdStrike incident had no effect on the Ntirety Security Services technology stack and customers utilizing the full Ntirety Managed Security Services experienced no disruption in service.
The primary benefit to Ntirety customers during this event is that Ntirety is not just a Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP) but also an award-winning Managed Service Provider (MSP), managing not just security services, but also infrastructure. What this means is that customers are able to utilize their own tech stacks and, should that technology fail, Ntirety is there to provide support and recovery services. Some of our customers do utilize CrowdStrike applications within their environments. For these customers, Ntirety supported remediation efforts as they became available.
Ntirety Support Engineers worked with our customers to remediate the impact during this outage. For those customers who rely on Ntirety’s Monitoring Insights platform, Ntirety notified affected customers as applications became unresponsive, even as remediations were simultaneously occurring based on runbooks designed in conjunction with these customers. Conference bridges were available where necessary, and engineers worked around the clock until all customers impacted were back online and running fully.
As a customer, when an incident of this magnitude occurs, it’s understandable to ask yourself, “What could I have done differently to avoid being impacted?”
The CrowdStrike defect was not caused by a cyber incident or a product quality issue. It was related to a process issue that CrowdStrike is taking steps to remediate. Responsible technology suppliers take quality control issues very seriously, and issues like the recent outage are extremely rare.
The Ntirety Commitment to Customers
As a Services company entrusted with critical systems and data, we at Ntirety deeply value our customers and are invested in their continued success. We state our commitment via a Customer Pledge that we take very seriously:
- Put Customers and Partners first. Always.
- Deliver peace of mind continually and rapid resolution, if necessary.
- Invest in world-class systems and people.
- Innovate with performance and value in mind.
- Be transparent.
Here is how we put these commitments into practice.
Comprehensive Security Services
Our comprehensive suite of managed security services is designed to ensure your systems always remain secure and operational.
Rapid Response
When disruptions occur, the Ntirety team addresses issues immediately, minimizing downtime and maintaining business continuity.
Proactive Management
Our 24x7x365 Security Operations Center (SOC) constantly monitors for potential threats, quickly identifying and resolving issues to prevent disruptions.
Unmatched Expertise
Our cybersecurity experts bring deep knowledge and experience, providing the highest levels of service.
In today’s interconnected world, having a trusted and responsive Managed Service Provider (MSP) is not just a competitive advantage—it’s a necessity. With Ntirety, you can rest assured that your system and security needs are in capable hands, empowering you to focus on what you do best: running your business.
To learn more about Ntirety Managed Services, schedule a consultation.
