internationally known, but for the wrong reasons, became CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. on Friday. an American cybersecurity software company based in Austin, Texas.

On Friday, an erroneous security update by the company on Microsoft’s servers for large customers (Azure) caused a global outage in cyberspace. The problem manifests itself with the appearance of the notorious “Blue Screen of Death» (BSOD) in terminals of banks, airlines and other multinationals.

The “tragic irony” is that CrowdStrike ehas an active and successful role in dealing with or preventing cyber-attacks, and even in cases that became internationally known, providing protection in the cloud.

The US firm has been involved in investigations into high-profile cases, including the 2014 Sony Pictures cyber attack, the 2015-1026 Democratic National Committee (DNC) cyber attacks and the 2016 DNC email leak.

CrowdStrike was founded by George Kurtz (president and CEO), Dmitry Alperovich (former CTO) and Greg Marston (former CFO) in 2011. In 2012, Sean Henry, a former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) official, was hired to lead the CrowdStrike subsidiary Services, Inc., which focused on proactive response and incident response services. In June 2013, the company released its first product, CrowdStrike Falcon, which also triggered the June 19, 2024 global issue.

However, in May 2014, CrowdStrike’s reporting helped the United States Department of Justice indict five Chinese military hackers for financial cyber espionage against United States companies. CrowdStrike also uncovered the activities of Energetic Bear, a hacker group with ties to the Russian Federation, which conducted cyber attacks against global targets, primarily in the energy sector.

After the Sony Pictures hack, CrowdStrike revealed evidence implicating the North Korean government and showed how the attack was carried out. In 2014, CrowdStrike also played a role in tracking down members of Putter Panda, the Chinese state-sponsored hacking group also known as PLA Unit 61486.

In May 2015, the company released information about VENOM, a critical security flaw that allowed attackers to access sensitive personal information. In October 2015, CrowdStrike announced that it had identified Chinese hackers who were launching attacks on tech and pharmaceutical companies at a time when US President Barack Obama and Chinese leader Xi Jinping publicly agreed that the US and China would not engage in economic espionage on either side.

In December 2016, CrowdStrike published a report stating that the Fancy Bear hacker group linked with the Russian government had hacked a Ukrainian artillery application. They concluded that Russia had used the security loophole to inflict heavy casualties on Ukrainian artillery units.

In 2017, the company surpassed $1 billion in valuation, with estimated annual revenue of $100 million. In June 2018, the company announced that its valuation exceeded $3 billion.

The American company’s investors include Google, Telstra, March Capital Partners, Rackspace, Accel Partners and Warburg Pincus. It is listed on the Nasdaq New Technology Market as CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. (CRWD).

“Sorry…”

George Kurtz, president and CEO of CrowdStrike, the company at the center of the global digital blackout, told NBC that the problems may persist for some time to come.

“Some systems that don’t automatically recover can take time to recover,” Kurtz said on NBC’s “TODAY” show.

Kurtz said the company “deeply regrets the impact it’s caused to customers, travelers, anyone affected by this,” adding that the issue has been resolved.

“Many of the customers reboot the system and it comes back up and running because we finally fixed it,” he said. “We’re just trying to fix where the problem was,” he said of the flawed update that affected Windows PCs.

A $16 billion “problem.”

Shares of the cybersecurity company plunge after the rapid events.

The company’s stock is down 20% in pre-conference trading. The drop corresponds to one fifth of its value and translates into $16 billion.

At the same time, the shares of Microsoft, which also announced problems with its cloud services and Microsoft 365, fell by 2.5%.

CrowdStrike