U.S. House leaders are urging CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz to testify before Congress regarding the company’s role in the recent extensive tech outage. This incident, which grounded flights, disrupted banks and hospital systems, and affected services worldwide, has drawn significant attention.
CrowdStrike has reported that a “significant number” of the computers affected by Friday’s outage are now back online. The company is working closely with its customers and regulators to provide a detailed explanation of the situation.
Republicans leading the House Homeland Security Committee have expressed their desire for a prompt and thorough account. “While we value CrowdStrike’s efforts and collaboration with stakeholders, the scale of this incident—possibly the largest IT outage ever—cannot be overlooked,” stated Representatives Mark E. Green of Tennessee and Andrew Garbarino of New York in their letter to Kurtz. They emphasized that Americans “deserve a comprehensive understanding of how this incident occurred and what steps CrowdStrike is taking to address it.”
The outage, caused by a flawed software update from CrowdStrike, disrupted operations across airlines, banks, hospitals, and other essential services, affecting approximately 8.5 million machines running Windows. Restoring these systems has often required manual intervention from IT teams.
In response, CrowdStrike announced on Sunday that it is deploying a new method to speed up remediation efforts and stated on Monday that it is in active communication with congressional committees.
Since the incident, CrowdStrike’s stock has fallen by over 20%, resulting in a substantial loss in market value. The extent of the disruption has also attracted the attention of government regulators, including antitrust officials, although it remains unclear if any formal action will be taken against the company.
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Lina Khan, Chair of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, commented on the situation via social media platform X, highlighting how a single technical failure can lead to widespread disruptions across various sectors. “Millions of people and businesses bear the consequences. These incidents expose how system concentration can lead to fragile and vulnerable systems,” Khan noted.
