CrowdStrike CEO panics, begins to choke when asked how single update caused such chaos. Viral video

George Kurtz, the CEO of cybersecurity company CrowdStrike, looked visibly nervous during a TV interview.

Updated on: Jul 20, 2024, 11:06:55 IST

By Sanya Jain

Prefer HTon Google

Share via

Copy link

George Kurtz, the CEO of cybersecurity company CrowdStrike, looked visibly nervous and choked on his words when asked how a single update could cause so much disruption across the world.

Global IT outage: Crowdstrike CEO George Kurtz.

A botched software update from CrowdStrike brought the world to a grinding halt on Friday, crashing countless Microsoft Windows computer systems and disrupting air travel, banking, stock markets, and more.

CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz shared a statement saying a single update caused the outage. He looked visibly nervous when questioned about this statement as he appeared on NBC’s Today TV show hours after the outage.

“According to your statement, it was a single content update that has managed to shut down air travel, credit card payment systems, banks, broadcast, street lights, 911, emergency around the globe. Why is there not some kind of redundancy or some sort of backup? How is it that one single software bug can have such a profound and immediate impact?” the interviewer asked Kurtz.

The CEO of CrowdStrike stammered and had to take a drink of water before he could form a full sentence. A video of the moment has gone massively viral online, collecting millions of views on the social media platform X.

Take a look at the video below:

Security experts said CrowdStrike's routine update of its widely used cybersecurity software, which caused clients' computer systems to crash globally on Friday, apparently did not undergo adequate quality checks before it was deployed.

The latest version of its Falcon Sensor software was meant make CrowdStrike clients' systems more secure against hacking by updating the threats it defends against. But faulty code in the update files resulted in one of the most widespread tech outages in recent years for companies using Microsoft's Windows operating system, news agency Reuters reported.

CrowdStrike has since fixed the problem on their end.

In a statement, Kurtz apologised for the outage and said the issue had been identified and a fix deployed.

“The outage was caused by a defect found in a Falcon content update for Windows hosts. Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted. This was not a cyberattack,” he clarified.

(Also read: Elon Musk amused by Indian meme on Microsoft outage as users face ‘blue screen of death’)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sanya Jain
Sanya Jain is an Assistant Editor with Hindustan Times Digital. She has nearly a decade of experience in covering offbeat stories that speak to the everyday experience - from viral videos to human interest copies that spark conversation. Her interests stretch across business, pop culture, social media trends, entertainment and global affairs. Before joining Hindustan Times, Sanya spent two years with Moneycontrol and five years with NDTV. She holds an undergraduate degree in English literature from St Stephen’s College, Delhi, and a master’s in journalism from the Xavier Institute of Communications, Mumbai. Sanya has a sharp eye for spotting emerging trends and looking for newsworthy angles to elevate viral posts into meaningful narratives. She was the first one, for example, to cover Narayana Murthy’s remark on 70-hour work weeks that sparked a national conversation. She is equally at ease writing about business leaders as about the common man, about issues of national importance and memes that amuse social media. Sanya enjoys speaking with content creators, newsmakers and entrepreneurs to transform everyday moments into engaging, slice-of-life stories that resonate with readers. When she is not working, Sanya can be found curled up with a good book. Born and raised in Lucknow, she has spent the last several years in Delhi. She is deeply interested in animal welfare and now spends a lot of her time running after her destructive orange cat.Read More

Get Latest Updates on Trending News Viral News, Video, Photos and Weather Updates of India and around the world