CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz announces progress in fixing systems
A week after a faulty update caused a global IT outage that grounded flights and knocked TV stations off-air, CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz has revealed that nearly all systems are back online. In a post on LinkedIn, Kurtz stated that “over 97%” of systems running its software were back online as of 25 July. Microsoft had previously estimated that 8.5 million machines had been disabled by a bug in CrowdStrike’s software, leaving approximately 250,000 devices still offline.
Kurtz thanked the “tireless efforts” of customers and staff and apologized for the incident, promising a response that is focused, effective, and urgent. He acknowledged that the work to fix devices is not yet complete but reassured that the company is committed to restoring every impacted system.
Bringing systems back online has proven to be a time-consuming process, with solutions shared online by CrowdStrike and Microsoft within 24 hours of the problem being reported. Remedies included restarting machines in safe mode and deleting the faulty file, but physical access to devices was required, posing challenges in some cases. Microsoft has released a tool to expedite the process, and Kurtz mentioned that the development of automated recovery tools has enhanced recovery efforts.
CrowdStrike has provided more detail about how the issue arose in a Preliminary Incident Review and has committed to measures to prevent a recurrence. However, the company faced criticism for giving staff and partners a UberEats voucher as a token of thanks for the disruption, with some feeling unsatisfied with the gesture.
According to insurance firm Parametrix, the top 500 US companies by revenue, excluding Microsoft, suffered .4 billion in financial losses from the outage.
