CrowdStrike 'too critical' to be written off after huge IT outage hits operations around the world, analyst says
A global IT outage linked to the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike caused chaos at transport hubs, banks, and more on Friday.
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- One of the largest IT outages ever hit operations around the world on Friday.
- The issue was caused by an update to Windows issued by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike.
- One analyst said the firm was "too critical of a tool" to be written off after the incident.
A global IT outage linked to the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike caused chaos at transport hubs, media outlets, banks, and more on Friday.
While some analysts have labeled the incident as "a major black eye" for the firm, whose share price closed down 11% on Friday, others are reluctant to write off the company just yet.
Trevor Walsh, an equity research analyst at Citizens JMP Securities, told Yahoo Finance that "the criticality of CrowdStrike as a security platform tends to, I think, outweigh some of those issues in the sense of customers can't afford to just turn them off and not renew because of one incident."
"They're just too tied into the ecosystem," he said. "They're too critical of a tool and what kind of within the overall stack."
Walsh also commended CrowdStrike and its CEO, George Kurtz, for their transparency over the problems.
The outage, which is said to be one of the largest in history, was caused by a "defect" in an update for Windows issued by CrowdStrike.
Airlines such as United Airlines, Delta Air Lines, American Airlines, British Airways, and Lufthansa were all affected by the outage.
Hospitals and healthcare services, grocery stores, retailers, and fast-food giants, also suffered major disruptions.
Some emergency 911 services even temporarily went down due to the problems.
While CrowdStrike was able to fix the underlying issue, affected computers may need to be rebooted manually.
In an interview on NBC's Today Show, CrowdStrike chief executive George Kurtz said it could take "some time" for all affected systems to recover.