CrowdStrike also manages endpoint protection, antivirus capabilities, real-time monitoring, and threat detection to prevent unauthorised access, and protect customers from hackers and breaches.
The company is one of several that provide similar security software, usually to larger organisations. More than 23,000 worldwide companies are subscribed to CrowdStrike, and although its software impacts millions of end-users, most wouldn’t have heard of the company that has around 8000 employees and turns over around $3 billion in revenue every year.
So, what actually happened?
Basically, CrowdStrike uses a platform called Falcon, purpose-built to stop breaches and protect from attacks including credential theft. The platform is installed on Windows, Mac and Linux systems.
CrowdStrike launched a software update earlier this week, but the update had a bug in it, wiping out Microsoft’s operating system, and ultimately causing global chaos.
“Today was not a security or cyber incident. Our customers remain fully protected,” CrowdStrike CEO, George Kurtz said in a statement.
“We understand the gravity of the situation and are deeply sorry for the inconvenience and disruption. As noted earlier, the issue has been identified and a fix has been deployed.”
Who was impacted by the tech outage?
Thousands of people were impacted by the outage that brought multiple organisations from across the globe to a grinding halt. In Australia, the outage impacted media websites, banks, airlines and supermarkets.
