Watch CrowdStrike Face U.S. Lawmakers This Tuesday

An Outage Strikes: Assessing the Global Impact of CrowdStrike’s Faulty Software Update

This Tuesday, CrowdStrike will be in the spotlight as a top executive is set to testify before a U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee about the company’s disastrous software update last July that resulted in a significant worldwide IT outage.

Adam Meyers, the senior vice president of counter adversary operations at CrowdStrike, will address lawmakers to explain the factors behind the disruption and describe the corrective measures the company is implementing to prevent similar incidents in the future. His testimony may also influence future cybersecurity legislation.

The software update, which was rolled out to Windows devices by the Texas-based company, caused IT systems across the globe to fail, leading to significant disruptions for various sectors, including airlines, healthcare, banking, retail, and many others.

The severity of the incident has led many to label it the most significant error ever experienced in the IT industry. Additionally, CrowdStrike was awarded the “Most Epic Fail” at the recent Pwnie Awards, where company president Michael Sentonas accepted the honor.

Following the incident, CrowdStrike’s founder and CEO, George Kurtz, publicly apologized, stating that his team swiftly identified the problem and implemented a solution. He clarified that this was not the result of a cyberattack but rather a defect in a Falcon content update for Windows hosts, noting that Mac and Linux devices were not affected.

Kurtz pledged to maintain full transparency regarding how the outage occurred and to take every possible step to ensure it does not happen again.

Meyers’ testimony before the House Homeland Security Committee on Tuesday is anticipated to provide further insights into the incident, and he is expected to face intense questioning throughout the session.

How to Watch

The hearing is scheduled to begin at 2 p.m. ET on Tuesday, September 24, and may last until 5 p.m. ET. You can follow the proceedings using the embedded video player at the top of this page.