CrowdStrike boss apologises for 'mistake' that caused global IT outage

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A senior executive at CrowdStrike has apologised for a faulty software update that caused a global IT outage in July.

The incident led to worldwide flight cancellations and impacted industries around the globe including banks, health care, media companies and hotel chains.

The outage disrupted internet services, affecting 8.5 million Microsoft Windows devices.

Adam Meyers, senior vice president for counter adversary operations at CrowdStrike, said the company released a content configuration update for its Falcon Sensor security software that resulted in system crashes worldwide.

“We are deeply sorry this happened and we are determined to prevent this from happening again,” Mr Meyers said.

“We have undertaken a full review of our systems and begun implementing plans to bolster our content update procedures so that we emerge from this experience as a stronger company.”

The committee members pressed Mr Meyers on how the incident occurred in the first place, with legislators likening its impact to that of a well-planned, sophisticated cyber attack, rather than because of a “mistake” inside CrowdStrike’s software.

He said the issue was not the result of a cyberattack or prompted by AI.

Giving evidence to US legislators, Mr Meyers said: “We appreciate the incredible round-the-clock efforts that our customers and partners who, working alongside our teams, mobilised immediately to restore systems.

“We were able to bring many customers back online within hours. I can assure that we continue to approach this with a great sense of urgency.”