The "cyber blackout", occurred on July 19, highlighted a significant vulnerability in the global digital infrastructure. The interruption was caused by a software update, designed to improve threat detection and response.
As it is known,many organizations are concerned about possible cyber attacks. A survey by Check Point Research reveals that attacks increased by almost 70% in Brazil in one year.
According to the "Digital Security Barometer", cybersecurity is considered extremely important, because it prevents the exposure of sensitive data, information tampering and system unavailability, avoiding risks to the organization's credibility. According to the research, 84% of companies recognize the importance of cybersecurity; however, only 35% of them have a department dedicated exclusively to digital security
The update aimed to enhance the capacity of the program's dynamic protection mechanism, that performs behavioral pattern matching operations to identify and neutralize threats. However, the update resulted in a "blue screen" on several computers with Microsoft operating systems around the world
A failure in the Rapid Response Content update led to an unplanned outage. This mechanism, that uses a highly optimized system of fields and values with associated filtering, directly impacted the machines that use Windows
This incident highlights the need for a more cautious and rigorous approach to implementing updates in critical security systems, highlighting the need for more detailed internal attention, because security updates require a careful and preventive approach.
The cyber blackout serves as an important lesson, reinforcing that, besides external threats, vulnerabilities can be in existing systems or processes, in this case in the change management process
IT professionals must adopt rigorous approval and testing processes before releasing updates in production. I emphasize the need for this practice to ensure the quality and proper functioning of the systems, because this helps to reduce costs, avoid waste and minimize the risks of catastrophic failures.
The rigorous practice of change management andquality assuranceit is crucial to maintain the trust of end users and ensure the stability of services, ensuring that security improvements do not compromise the functionality of systems and operations
