Losses from computer crashes caused by CrowdStrike exceeded $5 billion
CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz summoned to the US House of Representatives' Homeland Security Committee
Insurance company Parametrix has calculated the damage caused to the largest US companies by last Friday's global computer failure, when an automatic update of the CrowdStrike anti-virus software disrupted IT systems around the world.
According to insurers, the 500 largest US companies by revenue (excluding Microsoft) suffered losses totalling about $5.4 billion in the US alone.
Part of the damage was insured, but insurance payments will cover only 10-20% of the actual financial losses.
CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz was summoned to appear before the US House of Representatives' Homeland Security Committee.
‘This incident should serve as a warning to all of us and a vivid example of the national security risks posed by network dependency,’ the congressmen said in a letter sent to Kurtz.
CrowdStrike's management should respond to the letter and set a date for the hearing no later than Wednesday evening.
In the meantime, they have promised to improve software testing methods to prevent a repeat of the global computer outage.
Friday's incident, which was the fault of CrowdStrike, led to massive disruptions in the work of banks, hospitals and airlines around the world, as the updated program conflicted with the Windows operating system, displaying the so-called blue screen of death.
Background. According to the latest reports, the faulty update caused about 8.5 million computers running on the Microsoft Windows operating system to crash. Crowdstrike CEO George Kurtz apologised for the consequences of the failure.
On Monday, 3 days after the outage, CrowdStrike reported that ‘almost all’ computers were back online. The company promises to release a new update to its software to help speed up the resumption of normal operation of computers.
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