“Who is CrowdStrike? The Cybersecurity Firm Behind the Largest Global IT Outage in History”

20240720 003137

CrowdStrike, a Texas-based cybersecurity company, has found itself at the heart of a significant global IT outage that occurred on Friday.

Specializing in endpoint security, CrowdStrike leverages cloud technology to safeguard internet-connected devices. Its Falcon platform, designed to prevent cyber breaches, is relied upon by numerous Fortune 500 companies, including major banks, healthcare organizations, and airlines.

On Friday, a problematic update for the Falcon platform triggered widespread system crashes, colloquially referred to as the “blue screen of death,” impacting various industries around the globe.

CrowdStrike’s software needs extensive access to operating systems in order to detect threats, which resulted in severe disruptions when the update conflicted with Windows.

CEO George Kurtz confirmed that the incident was not a result of a cyberattack and reassured customers that the issue is being addressed.

Resolving the problem necessitates manual intervention in data centers, complicating the recovery process.

Source: CNBC