The $5.4 Billion Computer Bug

0:01Speaker 1:On July nineteenth, twenty twenty four, the world was shaken by what many are calling the worst cyber event in history. Roughly eight point five million computers were affected, over nine thousand flights were delayed, and massive shutdowns were felt across the world.

0:19Speaker 2:Breaking news, a massive global technical outage has not critical computer infrastructure offline all across the country, and in fact, all around the world.

0:29Speaker 1:Every one of them suffering at the hands of the same blue screen of death.

0:34Speaker 3:Businesses, hospitals, airlines, government offices all knocked offline because of a simple software update.

0:41Speaker 1:Thousands of people suddenly stranded at airports, Countless medical procedures canceled and delayed. The effects went far and beyond what anyone could have expected, instantly highlighting our heavy reliance on technology and how swiftly everything could crumble.

0:59Speaker 3:To give you another vision, here is a time lapse showing the number of active flights nationwide overnight as the outage became more widespread. You can see the quick shrinkage as more airlines grounded planes and canceled flightlightlightlightlight.

1:14Speaker 1:Who exactly is responsible for this? What happened, how did they respond, and ultimately what can we learn from it. The story centers primarily around an Austin, Texas based cybersecurity company known as CrowdStrike, but more specifically the antivirus software known as CrowdStrike. Falcon received an update to what's called a vulnerability scanner, the part of the program designed to assess devices and networks for weaknesses and well vulnerabilities. Essentially, they released an update containing in error. Since launched, the program has built up a client base of over thirty thousand users, roughly three hundred of which being Fortune five hundred companies, as well as countless high profile and high risk customers like banks, airlines, and healthcare. However, to this point, CrowdStrike has played a trustworthy and powerful role in the fight for cybersecurity. They were hired to investigate such scandals as the twenty fifteen and twenty sixteen Democratic National Committee cyber attacks, and even the twenty fourteen Sony Pictures hack that saw a massive leak of personal information surrounding Sony employees.

2:17Speaker 1:In April of twenty twenty four, three months before the big crash that would lose companies millions of dollars, the company would begin seeing some crashes, and while they weren't merely as severe as they would be later on, and they only affected Linux users. They were all caused by the same problem routine software updates. However, just because a small number of users were affected by these aforementioned crashes, in the long run, this should have absolutely been raising red flags within the company, especially in regards to their QA process, whether due to mismanagement, oversight, or incompetence. CrowdStrike didn't seem to notice these foundational cracks, that is, until they had no other choice. This is an end. DCWS special reports.

3:02Speaker 2:A massive global technical outage tied to CrowdStrike, which is a major cybersecurity provider, has noted critical computer infrastructure offline all across the country and in fact all around the world.

3:15Speaker 1:Video footage began emerging of countless passengers at LAX sleeping on the floor, exhausted from flight after flight being delayed in a never ending cycle of disappointment. Banks became unable to access their customer's account information. Doctors in the UK were barred from accessing critical programs responsible for accessing blood tests and patient histories. In New York City, emergency systems such as nine to one one were down across the state.

3:40Speaker 1:Even extending as far as Alaska, where citizens couldn't contact police or emergency services. Things were bad. CrowdStrike stock dropped from a market cap of ninety four billion all the way down to fifty three billion, losing the company just short of forty billion dollars in market value. Even Microsoft, who played no role in this besides Windows, the operating system I Falcon had been installed on, dropped six percent. One tech analyst for Webbush Securities went on record estimating CrowdStrike could lose about five percent of its customer base, which might not sound like a lot, but considering this is a seventy two billion dollar company and adding up the amount of money they may owe in legal fees, lawsuits, and refunds, this is not going to be something CrowdStrike can just walk off, at least not for a while, which really begs the question of what their testing process really is and why basic errors like this weren't caught by something like automated testing. If so many computers were affected so immediately, with CrowdStrike seeing such a sudden uptick in crashes beginning even months before the July twenty fifth incident,

4:39Speaker 1:they've got to figure out what's slipping in the office and fix it immediately. But how did CrowdStrike respond to this? Well, many believe the response from CEO George Kurtz as well as COSO Sean Henry to have been more timely, direct, and confident than we may have expected.

4:54Speaker 4:How is it that one single software bug can have such a profound and immediate impact.

5:00Speaker 5:Well, when you look at the complexity of cybersecurity, you're always trying to state, what, excuse me.

5:06Speaker 1:One step ahead of the adversaries.

5:10Speaker 5:Excuse me, man, it's one second thief.

5:15Speaker 1:Kurtz went on the Today Show showing face and owning up to everything that happened, as well as releasing a statement on the company's website in which he would write.

5:23Speaker 5:I want to sincerely apologize directly to all of you for today's outage. All of CrowdStrike understands the gravity and impact of the situation. We quickly identified the issue and deployed a fix, allowing us to focus diligently on restoring customer systems as our highest priority.

5:38Speaker 1:He would go on to offer a link to the company's support portal to work with the company's tech support and representatives, and offered full transparency on how this all occurred and what steps were being taken to prevent anything like this from happening again. This is honestly a great response. They immediately began working to fix the problem, offered solutions to those still affected, showed face on the news, and worked diligently to take responsibility and remain accessible through the struggle.

6:05Speaker 1:While it's important to do everything you can with your own company to prevent catastrophe, it's also paramount that we understand how we can bounce back, take ownership, and ultimately recover. In the case of CrowdStrike, this recovery is already on its way, with company stock rising nearly three percent since the incident, and they don't seem to be losing as many customers as some previously estimated. Mission Critical Systems CEO Ken Mitra would tell CRN.

6:30Speaker 4:I haven't had a customer say hey, we're going to rip and replace CrowdStrike. That hasn't happened. They still have really really good technology and they kind of dominate the market. Will they recover and go on to do bigger things? Yes, absolutely, But.

6:45Speaker 1:While CrowdStrike may have dodged a bullet in the long term, their short term costs are adding up by the day, and it's hard to say how well they would be recovering right now had it not been for the swift, direct and honest response from those in charge, and of course, the actual ability to fix the problem. If you like this story and want more like it, tap that like button somewhere down there and subscribe for more