CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz: ‘We’re Deeply Sorry’ For Massive Disruptions

In terms of recovering from the outage, ‘it could be some time for some systems that just won’t automatically recover,’ Kurtz said in a televised interview.

After a CrowdStrike software update caused a massive Microsoft outage with impacts worldwide, “it could be some time” before a full recovery is possible, CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz said in a televised interview Friday.

Speaking with the Today show, Kurtz said that “we’re deeply sorry for the impact that we’ve caused to customers, to travelers, to anyone affected by this.”

A defective Falcon software update from CrowdStrike caused a Microsoft outage and led to massive impacts to flights, medical services, 911 and other systems on a global basis Friday.

CrowdStrike said in an update Friday morning “a fix has been deployed,” which Kurtz echoed in his televised comments. The company has “resolved the issue” and “now it’s [about] recovering systems that are out there.”

When asked how long the recovery process might take, Kurtz suggested it may not be immediate.

“It could be some time for some systems that just won’t automatically recover,” he said.

“As you might imagine, we’ve been with our customers all night and working with them,” Kurtz said. “Many of the customers are rebooting the system, and it’s coming up and it’ll be operational.”

The defective CrowdStrike software update led to a “blue screen of death” for many Windows users and led to massive impacts on real-world services including more than 1,000 flights reportedly canceled, health-care services curtailed and 911 system outages.

In response to an inquiry from CRN Friday, CrowdStrike said that the company is “actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts.” The outage has not been caused by a cyberattack, the company noted.

In a note to investors Friday, Daniel Ives, managing director and senior equity research analyst at Wedbush Securities, said that the effects from the outage were unprecedented. The CrowdStrike-Microsoft outage is “impacting businesses, airports, consumers and a ripple impact never seen globally,” he wrote.

CrowdStrike’s stock price was down 8.8 percent as of this writing Friday morning to $313 a share.

Multiple airlines reportedly asked the Federal Aviation Administration for a full ground stop on flights amid the outage.

Flights from American Airlines, United and Delta were the hardest hit, according to reports. Nearly 1,400 flights have reportedly been canceled globally.

“The FAA is closely monitoring a technical issue impacting IT systems at U.S. airlines,” the FAA said in a post on X. “Several airlines have requested FAA assistance with ground stops until the issue is resolved.”

American Airlines said in a post on X that it was able to “re-establish its operation” as of 5 a.m. EST. Delta said on X that it “has resumed some flights after a vendor technology issue impacting airlines and businesses globally.”

United said on X that “as we work to fully restore these systems, some flights are resuming. Many customers traveling today may experience delays.”

A number of U.S. hospitals have curtailed services, including elective surgeries and other non-urgent visits Friday as a result of the outage.

Mass General Brigham in Boston said in a post on X that “all previously scheduled non-urgent surgeries, procedures and medical visits are canceled today.” Cincinnati Children’s Hospital said on X that “many of our Microsoft-based computer systems have been affected by the worldwide technology outage.”

Health services impacts were also reported in countries including the U.K., Germany and Israel.

Meanwhile, impacts to 911 systems in states including Arizona, New Hampshire and Alaska were reported.

In a post on X, Microsoft said the update to CrowdStrike’s Falcon software led to “an issue with Windows 365 Cloud PCs.”

“To fix this, users may restore their Windows 365 Cloud PC to a known good state prior to the release of the update (July 19, 2024),” the company said in the post on its Microsoft 365 Status account.