Department of Defense (DoD) operations were unaffected by the ongoing Microsoft outage caused by a flawed CrowdStrike security update, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said on Friday.
“For all reports I have right now, [there have been] no impact on DoD operations,” Gen. C.Q. Brown said on July 19 during the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado.
The incident – which began on July 19 – was not linked to a cyberattack, CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz said on Friday. Rather, he outages affecting banks, airlines, and other sectors worldwide resulted from a faulty update to CrowdStrike’s Falcon security software deployed to Windows systems early Friday.
Though Brown said DoD operations haven’t faced major issues, it’s important to note that CrowdStrike is responsible for securing critical assets for the Pentagon, the Defense Industrial Base (DIB), as well as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) through the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and other Federal agencies.
Despite Pentagon operations being unaffected thus far, Brown used the incident to talk about the importance of cybersecurity.
“How we use our software [and] how we use our tools is important, and the things that we do particularly in DoD to protect our capabilities to ensure that we can still protect the nation, even when you have – whether it’s a glitch or an attack – that would be best postured to be able to support,” Brown said.
He added that the Crowdstrike glitch should serve as a reminder to not just government officials but to the nation as a whole “why it’s important …to protect ourselves and be best postured.”
“I’m sure our adversaries are looking at this as a way to, I would say, put sand in our gears when we’re trying to generate combat power to go to respond to a crisis anywhere around the world,” he added.
