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Following last month's CrowdStrike update fiasco, which temporarily bricked at least 8.5 million Windows computers, Microsoft will hold an event to discuss bolstering the OS's security.
This Windows Endpoint Security Ecosystem Summit is scheduled for Sept. 10 at Microsoft's Redmond headquarters. Microsoft, its key partners, and even CrowdStrike will "discuss concrete steps we will all take to improve security and resiliency for our joint customers." Microsoft says it will also invite government representatives.
The July CrowdStrike update disrupted numerous industries, including airlines. So naturally, Microsoft wants to avoid a repeat that could undermine confidence in the Windows operating system and saddle the company with lawsuits.
"The CrowdStrike outage in July 2024 presents important lessons for us to apply as an ecosystem," Microsoft says.
Although details about the event are thin, the company expects the September gathering to usher in "both short- and long-term actions and initiatives to pursue." This might include making the Windows OS a more closed operating system, similar to Apple's macOS.
Microsoft has hinted it could try to prevent third-party software makers from accessing the Windows kernel, the brains of the operating system. CrowdStrike’s faulty update shut down millions of Windows PCs because the company’s security software operates at the kernel level.
That access is a double-edged sword since antivirus software harnesses kernel-level privileges to monitor malicious changes to the Windows OS at the earliest stages. As a result, some security companies are concerned Microsoft’s changes to the kernel access might hurt third-party antivirus products, which could draw antitrust scrutiny.
Still, Microsoft told The Financial Times that "it was considering several options to make its systems more stable and had not ruled out completely blocking access to the Windows kernel." The company is also looking at requiring third-party cybersecurity vendors to undergo more testing procedures.