What Are Your Rights: CrowdStrike Global Outage

Announcer: The following segment is sponsored by Harding Mazzotti.

Interviewer: In light of the recent CrowdStrike IT outage and a cyber security scare at UAlbany, it’s clear how quickly cyber security failures and breaches can impact all of us. So, what can you do if data breach puts your information at risk? We’ve got managing partner, Paul Harding here from Harding Mazzotti. Thank you for being here with us…

Paul: Thank you.

Interviewer: …to talk about this. So, what can you do? How can you act if your information is put at risk?

Paul: Well, we hope the professionals are doing their thing, but from your perspective, change that password as quickly as possible. And then with the two-factor authentication, that makes it virtually impossible for someone who has some of your information to steal from you. But it is one of those things where there’s a vulnerability factor, as you know it’s going down. So, watch your account balance, look to see what’s happening in your credit cards. A dollar that doesn’t make sense, could be the beginning of someone getting in your stuff.

Interviewer: Yeah. And with this CrowdStrike one specifically, was there anyone’s information at risk? Is that something people should be concerned about?

Paul: Yeah. We’ve got congressional hearings coming up, but right now they’re saying no. It was a faulty update, but what really hit home was, how a faulty update from a company that most of us hadn’t heard of until that day, including me, that it delayed hundreds of planes internationally. It affected health care, it affected financials. So, it really pointed out how we are so interconnected in this computer age. I mean, we sort of know it, but when you see it going in live time, there’s some vulnerability for all of us.

Interviewer: Yeah. With a data breach or even in a situation like that, where it just kind of outs your business for a whole day or a couple of days, is there legal action or recourse that people can take?

Paul: So, in a situation where this is happening, probably, right? Because you’ve got CrowdStrike, they did something wrong, they’ve affected you financially, different than if you’ve got somebody who’s kind of holding you hostage, who’s gotten involved in your business and is stealing from you. Because those folks usually are not around the corner. There’s not days when someone breaks in your house, somebody does something to you, you’ve got the police involved, you’ve got a high conviction rate. Here, these people are all over the world, virtually never locate them, and they’re often in places that the U.S. does not have any standing. So, will CrowdStrike be exposed to some liability? I think so. But generally, when this stuff happens, we’ve got lots of people who’ve called us. I’ve never seen anyone recover dollars from somebody who has stolen their identity.

Interviewer: What a note to end on.

Paul: Yeah, a high point.

Interviewer: All right, Paul. Well, thank you for breaking it down for us.

Paul: Absolutely.

Interviewer: And for more information covered in our weekly “What Are Your Rights” segments or to send us a story idea, head to our website, cbs6albany.com.