Congress Summons CrowdStrike CEO Over Repercussions of Global Tech Outage

The US House leaders have asked CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz to testify about the company's role in a tech outage that disrupted global services. This affected millions of computers, airlines, banks, and hospitals. Regulators are awaiting a detailed explanation. CrowdStrike is working on solutions, but its stock has suffered significantly.

US House leaders are compelling CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz to testify before Congress regarding the cybersecurity company's involvement in a massive tech outage that impacted flights, banks, hospitals, and other critical infrastructures globally. On the preceding Friday, a faulty software update from CrowdStrike led to widespread service disruptions on approximately 8.5 million machines running Windows OS. As CrowdStrike works to restore normalcy, a comprehensive explanation is still anticipated by customers and regulators.

Republicans heading the House Homeland Security Committee stressed the urgency of getting answers about the largest IT outage in history, highlighting the need for transparency and mitigation strategies. Representatives Mark E. Green and Andrew Garbarino emphasized that the American public deserves a clear understanding of how the crisis occurred and the steps being taken to prevent recurrence.

An accelerated remediation technique is being implemented by CrowdStrike, the company revealed in a recent blog post. Despite these efforts, the stock price of the Texas-based cybersecurity firm has plummeted over 20%, erasing billions from its market value. This incident has also attracted scrutiny from government regulators, potentially leading to antitrust investigations. Lina Khan, chair of the US Federal Trade Commission, underscored the systemic vulnerabilities exposed by such outages, stressing the high stakes for businesses and consumers.

(With inputs from agencies.)