WASHINGTON — U.S. House leaders are asking CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz to testify before Congress about the cybersecurity company’s role in triggering the widespread technology outage that has grounded flights, knocked banks and hospital systems offline and impacted services worldwide.
CrowdStrike said this week that a “significant number” of the millions of computers that crashed Friday, causing global disruption, are back up and running as its customers and regulators await a more detailed explanation of what happened.
Republicans who lead the House Homeland Security Committee said Monday they want those answers soon.
“While we appreciate CrowdStrike’s response and coordination with stakeholders, we cannot ignore the magnitude of this incident, which some have called the largest computer outage in history,” said a letter to Kurtz from Rep. Mark E. Green of Tennessee and Rep. Andrew Garbarino of New York.
They added that Americans “deserve to know in detail how this incident occurred and the mitigation measures taken by CrowdStrike.”
A faulty software update sent to customers by CrowdStrike disrupted airlines, banks, hospitals and other essential services Friday, affecting about 8.5 million machines running Microsoft’s Windows operating system. The painstaking repair work often required manually deleting files on affected machines.
CrowdStrike announced in a blog post Sunday night that it was beginning to implement a new technique to speed up the resolution of the problem. It also said in a brief statement Monday that it was actively in contact with congressional committees.
Shares of the Texas-based cybersecurity company have fallen more than 20% since the crisis, knocking billions of dollars off its market value.
The scale of the disruption has also drawn the attention of government regulators, including antitrust authorities, although it remains to be seen whether they will take action against the company.
“Too often today, a single technical glitch causes a systemwide outage, impacting industries ranging from healthcare and airlines to banks and car dealerships,” said Lina Khan, chairwoman of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, in a message posted Sunday on the social media platform X. “Millions of people and businesses are paying the price. These incidents reveal how concentration can weaken systems.”
