FCA Wake-Up Call: The CrowdStrike Outage and the Urgency of Operational Resilience in Financial Services

The recent CrowdStrike outage underscores how crucial operational resilience is in today’s interconnected business environment. This incident exposed vulnerabilities not just for the affected parties, but also for the entire ecosystem reliant on their services. The FCA highlighted this outage as a wake-up call, emphasising that firms must consider both direct and cascading effects in their operational resilience planning.

With the EU’s Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) and the UK's Operational Resilience deadlines fast approaching, financial services firms must address resilience gaps to remain compliant and secure. DORA and Operational Resilience mandates rigorous standards, including requirements for monitoring, incident management, and ICT third-party risk. The CrowdStrike incident serves as a reminder that even established providers can face disruptions, making it essential for organisations to continuously assess their dependencies on third-party technology providers.

Key lessons include the importance of:

1. Scenario Planning and Stress Testing: Firms should use lessons from real incidents like CrowdStrike’s to refine their scenario planning. Understanding how different outage scenarios might unfold enables firms to design better, more adaptable response strategies.
2. Enhanced Vendor Oversight: Financial institutions rely heavily on external ICT services, making oversight critical. With DORA’s and Operational Resilience requirements on ICT third-party risk, firms should ensure their providers have robust resilience strategies and conduct regular audits to confirm compliance.
3. Incident Response and Communication Plans: During disruptions, effective incident response and timely communication with stakeholders are vital. Ensuring that these are part of an organisation's resilience framework is key to minimising impact and restoring trust quickly.

For financial institutions, DORA and Operational Resilience sets a clear compliance path, but real-world incidents like CrowdStrike’s reveal that resilience goes beyond regulation—it’s a commitment to continuous improvement and preparedness. Firms that prioritise resilience not only meet regulatory requirements but also build greater trust with clients and stakeholders.

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