In October 2021, Facebook experienced a global outage. And everyone was aware of it, even those living in remote areas. It is because most people nowadays rely on WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger to communicate with each other. But what was impacted the most? Us! We all worked productively for almost six hours because all Meta products, including Facebook, Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram, were unavailable.

Facebook blamed the outage on inappropriate router configuration changes made by the company. This begs the question of how safe an average company is without financial or technological resources like Facebook and whether something similar to what happened to Facebook with their network security could easily happen to a small business's network security.

This occurrence was detrimental to Facebook because every second of downtime costs businesses the size of Facebook millions of dollars. And the majority of users found this particular outage to be impossible. The "Sign Up with Facebook" feature, which millions rely on to access other third-party applications, was unavailable. Due to the inability of businesses to promote on Facebook and Instagram, the company lost an estimated $100 million in advertising income. Shares of Facebook decreased by 5%, which implies that $40 billion was lost in a matter of hours!

So, what was the reason behind the Facebook outage? It was their change management process!

Every organization should have a change management procedure, but sometimes these transformation processes are just a checkbox exercise. However, these procedures frequently don't simulate or analyze what will occur if that change is not implemented. Facebook most likely also failed at this point. Many internal systems and tools were affected by this outage.

Today, many companies, including Facebook, try to develop internal tools, but since this is not their area of expertise, there are always some shortcomings and certain unexplored areas. And when protocols are not followed correctly, problems arise, which is what occurred in the case of Facebook.

Facebook didn't, however, prepare for change. They had scripts for the risk assessment of the update, but the programs failed to identify the issue because they didn't have the scripts for that particular type of change.

So What Do We Need To Know About Managing A Change Effectively?

Although configuration and change management may seem like dull subjects, they are incredibly crucial. It can be a significant issue if improperly handled and tested, as was the case with the aforementioned outage. All the networks and environments in the current environment began as much smaller networks with a single switch before evolving into numerous switches. Multiple firewalls are developed from a single firewall. Therefore, it is difficult for a human to examine any planned change. For a human to complete it and match it up with the security standards would be an enormous task.

Therefore, it is necessary to remove the human factor when attempting to study a change. Humans are aware that a change must be made, and that should be the extent of their involvement. To tackle the complexities of IT and cyber security, you need automation. Humans will fail if automation isn't present.

Complexity, visibility, automation, and humanity are the four concepts for successful change management. In the event of a Facebook-like outage, these four phrases succinctly describe the issue and its resolution.

How Can Your Business Prevent Network Outages?

Network disruptions are typically caused by incorrect configuration. In essence, conventional methods for maintaining network security policies limit your company's capacity for innovation and change. The five methods for safeguarding your business against a similar network failure are as follows:

  • Examine your security procedures and modify them if needed.
  • Automate security to simplify and accelerate it.
  • Gain visibility into your network across cloud and on-premises environments.
  • Before implementing changes to security policies, visualize their effects.
  • Increase the effectiveness of your security tools by integrating them.

The technological stack's integration is extremely important. When it comes to network security, you are at the mercy of luck if you are unable to automate, integrate, and visualize. The network security policy platform you select should be adaptable and able to secure your networks as they get bigger and more complicated while preserving desirable procedures. This makes visibility and scalability pretty crucial.

Conclusion

Is this particular outage regarded as favorable? Although no outage can be described as good, this one isn't technically categorized as unfavorable because hackers didn't bring it on. For example, a ransomware attack or any other attack that results in a data breach or the loss of customer data would normally be considered a bad outage. Experts see the Facebook outage as a good outage because there was no data compromise and it was a valuable lesson for everyone even mildly interested in cybersecurity.

Therefore, treat network security carefully and choose IT solutions companies like PC Lan. They are the most reliable advisors who can advise, carry out, and maintain your company's networking systems and cybersecurity. To get started, schedule a free consultation today!