What to do when you face a system outage

This morning we all woke to a Microsoft IT outage linked to cyber security firm CrowdStrike. What initially started as frustration for office workers using Teams quickly turned into outright chaos across hospitals, airports, railways and banks across the globe.

What’s happened?

Reports across social media show Windows machines with the BSoD (Blue Screen of Death) and no ability to restart or reset. From the NHS booking system being offline to banks and payment systems going down. From airport security grinding to a halt to Sky News being off-air.

While the issue has now been resolved, the ripple effect continues.

The Guardian spoke with cyber security expert, Dan Card from the Chartered Institute for IT, who claims the outage looks to be caused by a “bug to a regular security update, rather than any form of ‘mega cyber attack’, but this is still causing worldwide challenges and is likely to require a large number of people to take manual remedial steps.”

Microsoft and CrowdStrike continue to investigate the cause and they too have called it a “technical issue” rather than a cyber incident. Nevertheless, if you’re covered by a cyber insurance policy, it might come in handy right about now.

Outages like this make it clear how reliant we all are on specific technologies and cloud-based updates. It’s also a reminder of how important it is to have robust disaster recovery plans.

How could cyber insurance help?

Cyber insurance, also known as cyber liability insurance or cybersecurity insurance, is designed to cover any business which operates online or is exposed to the internet. It can cover numerous cyber incidents, including being affected by third-party downtime, like has happened today.

You may be reimbursed the income you lose because of a cybersecurity breach affecting your computer systems — or those of your suppliers (also known as dependent businesses).

This means you're not left out of pocket by interruptions to either your system or those of another business that you rely on. It could also pay for your data to be restored if it's lost or damaged in the process.

What to do if you’re affected

If you’re a cyber insurance policyholder through Superscript, you benefit from 24/7 incident response services — designed to get you back up and running as swiftly as possible.

Our incident responders are available 24/7 to triage incidents, contain threats and — if possible — repair networks. This expertise can make the difference between suffering a catastrophic loss or getting back online quickly.

The 24/7 incident response contact details vary from policy to policy. You will be able to find these signposted in your policy documentation which you can find on your dedicated customer portal. Alternatively, you can always reach out to us.