George Kurtz, the CEO of CrowdStrike, has received a letter from the US House Homeland Security Committee requesting him to testify on the security update his business sent last week that caused millions of Windows devices to crash.
Mark Green, a Republican from Tennessee and the leader of the committee wrote to the CEO of CrowdStrike, as reported by the Washington Post, saying, “We cannot ignore the magnitude of this incident, which some have claimed is the largest IT outage in history. In less than one day, we have seen major impacts to key functions of the global economy, including aviation, healthcare, banking, media, and emergency services. Recognizing that Americans will undoubtedly feel the lasting, real-world consequences of this incident, they deserve to know in detail how this incident happened and the mitigation steps CrowdStrike is taking.”
“We are relieved that you confirmed that ‘this is not a security incident or cyberattack.’ However, this incident must serve as a broader warning about the national security risks associated with network dependency,” Green continued.
A faulty update from CrowdStrike resulted in the crash of millions of Windows devices. After their handsets got trapped in recovery mode, users saw what’s frequently called the ‘blue screen of death’. At least 8.5 million Windows machines were impacted by the problematic update, according to Microsoft. The update had wreaked havoc in other vital industries, including banking, emergency services, healthcare, and aviation.
Even while Windows devices started to reconnect to the internet globally later on Friday. However, Businesses are facing problems relating to flight delays, backlogs, and more. Because of this, CrowdStrike is being closely monitored to make sure that a major outage like this one doesn’t happen again.