CrowdStrike’s ubiquity under fire as Congress calls for CEO to testify

Enlarge / Travelers navigate customer service and ticketing lines at Ronald Regan Washington National Airport on July 19, 2024 in Washington, DC. A global computer outage started from an update from the cybersecurity company CrowdStrike that impacted flights worldwide along with disrupting broadcasters and banking services. (credit: Nathan Howard / Stringer | Getty Images News)

In a letter Monday, the House Committee on Homeland Security demanded more transparency from CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz after major global outages were triggered by a "defect" in a recent update to CrowdStrike's Falcon Sensor software.

Considered by some to be "the largest IT outage in history," the issue delayed or canceled thousands of flights, disabled emergency calls, postponed surgeries, and impacted banks, committee chairman Mark Green (R-Tenn.) and Subcommittee on Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection chairman Andrew Garbarino (R-NY) wrote in the letter.

"In less than one day, we have seen major impacts to key functions of the global economy, including aviation, healthcare, banking, media, and emergency services," their letter said. "Recognizing that Americans will undoubtedly feel the lasting, real-world consequences of this incident, they deserve to know in detail how this incident happened and the mitigation steps CrowdStrike is taking."