CrowdStrike CEO Issues Apology, Warns Full Recovery Could Take Weeks
Businesses and services worldwide are slowly recovering from a massive technology outage that caused chaos and highlighted vulnerabilities in the globally interconnected economy. The disruption, sparked by a faulty software update, grounded flights, disrupted financial companies and news outlets, and affected hospitals, supermarkets, small businesses, and government offices.
By Saturday, several services were back online. However, George Kurtz, CEO of U.S. cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, whose botched software update on its Falcon Sensor affected Microsoft’s Windows operating system, cautioned that a full recovery could take weeks.
CrowdStrike announced it had implemented a fix, and Kurtz issued a public apology, saying, “I want to personally apologize to every organization, every group, and every person impacted by this widespread glitch.”
The White House reported that President Joe Biden’s team was in communication with CrowdStrike and affected parties, offering assistance as needed. “Our understanding is that flight operations have resumed across the country, although some congestion remains,” stated a senior U.S. administration official.
Junade Ali from Britain’s Institution of Engineering and Technology described the scale of the outage as “unprecedented,” noting it would likely be remembered alongside major incidents like the 2017 cyber attack. Toby Walsh, chief scientist at the Artificial Intelligence Institute at the University of New South Wales, remarked on the irony that the internet, originally designed as a nuclear-proof communication network, had proved so vulnerable.
In Europe, major airports, including Berlin, gradually resumed departures and arrivals after suspending all flights earlier on Friday. Despite this, dozens of European flights were canceled, with Turkish Airlines pulling 84 flights and Italian officials confirming about 80 cancellations. Latin American airports advised passengers to arrive hours earlier than usual, while Chinese state media reported no impact on Beijing’s airports.
As companies worked to patch their systems and assess the damage, officials emphasized that the outage was not due to foul play. Kristen Saloomey of Al Jazeera, reporting from New York, said the disruption “exposed a vulnerability in the economy and the volatility of the markets,” noting that while systems were being restored, the consequences for ordinary people might take longer to resolve.
Experts suggest that the incident should prompt a reevaluation of society’s reliance on a few technology companies for a wide array of services. “We need to be aware that such software can be a common cause of failure for multiple systems at the same time,” said Professor John McDermid of Britain’s York University, an expert in cybersecurity and software engineering. He emphasized the need for infrastructure to be resilient against such common cause problems.
Walsh warned, “We can expect there’s going to be quite a bit more trouble yet, especially when people get back to work on Monday and discover the ‘blue screen of death’.”
Despite the damage to CrowdStrike’s reputation, analysts do not foresee competitors gaining significant market share from the incident. Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, noted that while the event was a major setback for CrowdStrike, it stemmed from a technical update rather than a hack or cybersecurity threat, which would be “more worrying.”
CrowdStrike’s stock fell more than 11 percent on Friday, according to Reuters. The company, which previously had a market cap of about $83 billion, remains one of the most popular cybersecurity providers globally, with nearly 30,000 subscribers.
