Who Is CrowdStrike, the Company Behind Today’s Global Technology Disruption?
If you tried to fly, withdraw money from the bank, or even call 911 today, there’s a good chance you were impacted by the CrowdStrike outage Friday morning. This problem crashed entire fleets of corporate Windows computers around the world, and it wasn’t even malicious. Instead, the problem stems from a buggy update that the cybersecurity firm released overnight. IT departments are currently making fixes and executives are apologizing , but who is CrowdStrike and how did we even get here?
Who is CrowdStrike?
Microsoft’s built-in Windows security tools are likely to be sufficient for most people, but businesses need additional protection. That’s where CrowdStrike comes in: the company, founded in 2011, primarily focuses on assessing data risks and finding leaks and other vulnerabilities. He has had several major successes in the past, including discovering the source of the Sony Pictures leak in 2014 and investigating Russian cyberattacks on the Democratic National Committee in 2015 and 2016 . The company has about 29,000 customers and reported revenue of $900 million in its most recent fiscal quarter, according to Reuters .
It’s hard to imagine this all ending because of one bad update to one product among many, but the results of the bug were disastrous: more than 3,000 flights were canceled around the world, among many other problems. At the time of writing, the company’s shares are down more than 11% on the NASDAQ .
How did this happen?
The problems began with an update to CrowdStrike’s Falcon Sensor, one of many services the company offers that protects cloud files. If there’s a silver lining, it’s that the issue shouldn’t directly affect personal computers since CrowdStrike is enterprise-grade software. It also wasn’t a hack or leak, so companies don’t have to worry about their data falling into the wrong hands.
At the same time , the corrupt file introduced in the update is proving difficult to remove as airlines continue to cancel flights and delivery trucks face delays despite good weather.
Although CrowdStrike works with Windows, Mac, and Linux, only Windows clients are currently experiencing outages. Microsoft told the BBC it was aware of the issue, but initially took responsibility for fixing CrowdStrike, before CEO Satya Nadella later said Microsoft was now “working closely with CloudStrike” to provide technical support to customers.
Who uses CrowdStrike?
While you may not experience a crash on your personal computer, you may still be affected if you do business with a company that is having problems. CrowdStrike’s clients include Google, Amazon, Intel, and Target, so even remote workers who never visit the airport may have trouble completing everyday tasks like grocery shopping.
What will happen next?
CrowdStrike has released a fix for the problem, but it will take some time to implement as it requires carefully removing the problematic file from each affected computer, either through constant reboots or by searching for it in the recovery environment. Meanwhile, CEO George Kurtz said in an apology post that “all of CrowdStrike” had mobilized to provide support. He also assured users that, aside from the erroneous update, CrowdStrike’s protection continues to operate as normal, although he warned that attackers may try to take advantage of the situation by falsely impersonating CrowdStrike representatives. Users are advised to ensure that they communicate with official CrowdStrike personnel when resolving the error.
As for CrowdStrike itself, the company’s premarket value fell 12% in Friday’s premarket trading compared to its market value of $83.5 billion at Thursday’s close.
Given the scale of the problem, regulators are likely to intervene, although official announcements are still coming. Meanwhile, affected computers, including airport flight departure screens, continue to display the dreaded blue screen of death error.
CrowdStrike isn’t the only company of its kind: competitors like Palo Alto Networks and Zscaler offer similar services. Palo Alto’s market capitalization currently stands at $104.87 billion, and it’s possible that today’s fiasco will only further its lead.
Today’s difficulties could also help boost Mac and Linux sales, as while the outages companies are facing today are largely due to CrowdStrike, Microsoft has confirmed smaller issues with its Azure cloud services , leading some news sites to simply refer to the issue as an “outage” Microsoft.” or “Turn off Windows.”