July 24, 2024 – According to a report by The Washington Post, the CEO of CrowdStrike, George Kurtz, has been summoned to testify before the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security due to a faulty update from the company that caused a massive blue screen of death (BSOD) on Windows PCs. This incident had a widespread impact, affecting flights, hospitals, broadcasting, and various other sectors.
In a letter, the chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, Mark Green, and the chairman of the Subcommittee on Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection, Andrew Garbarino, stated, “Considering that the American public will undoubtedly feel the lasting and tangible negative impacts of this incident, they have the right to understand in detail how this incident occurred and the mitigation measures CrowdStrike is taking.” They demanded that CrowdStrike arrange a hearing with the subcommittee before Wednesday evening.
This letter indicates that CrowdStrike’s aftermath work on this technical failure is far from over. It’s worth noting that even on Monday, three days after the initial crash, Delta Air Lines was still dealing with flight cancellations and BSOD issues.
In a social media post on Friday, Kurtz assured the public that this massive downtime was “not a security or network incident,” but rather a “problem with the Falcon content update for Windows hosts,” referring to an issue with the company’s security software.
Kevin Benacci, a spokesperson for CrowdStrike, stated in a declaration that the company is “actively engaging with the relevant congressional committees. Briefings and other participation schedules may be disclosed by the members themselves.”
