From “paradise” to “hell” It seems that it spent just one night, Crowdstrike software, the plunged the world into its chaos A defective update from Crowdstrike caused widespread disruption throughout the world of IT and economy today (19.07.24). The share price fell sharply, according to Handelsblatt. However, the incident raises more fundamental questions. Crowdstrike would rather not have that global attention. The damage to computer systems that rocked the global economy today or was caused by a serious error of IT security expert from Austin, Texas. The software manufacturer, who was previously hardly known to the general public, had distributed an updated version during the night. This caused the Windows computer crash, accompanied by the so-called “blue death screen” – a well-known error message in computer circles. In other words, the program that promised protection paralyzed technology. As there was no possibility of short-term treatment, many companies were forced to limit their activities, whether airlines or car manufacturers, banks or clinics. Crowdstrike: Software reliability is in question System restoration is likely to last hours, if not days. The famous IT security expert Troy Hunt, known for his portal “Have I Been Punned”, has already shouted on the platform X that it is “the biggest shutdown of IT in history”. Regardless of whether the superintendent is real or not, the incident is likely to cause discussion. On the one hand, an IT security expert, who had previously attracted positive attention to the industry, is critical. On the other hand, the question arises again about how business customers should deal with the high level of dependence on individual software suppliers. The incident raises questions about software reliability, including among shareholders. Within a year, the share price increased by almost 100%. However, today there was a sale – at its peak, the share lost about 15% of its value in the first US transactions. Failure is likely to have caused significant damage worldwide. It is not yet possible to predict the consequences this will have for the company. When it comes to computer security, Crowdstrike is one of the big names. The company, which was founded in 2011 by three former McAfee employees, is one of the leading end-point detection and response providers along with Trend Micro, Bitdefender and Microsoft. It is about protecting devices, such as computers, from dangerous activities, such as hacker attacks. Crowdstrike has 29,000 customers around the world This is reflected in numbers: During the previous financial year by the end of January, the company increased its turnover by 36% to $3.1 billion, much of which came from subscriptions. He created about $940 million in free cash flows and $90 million in net profits. Crowdstrike is particularly known for further developing the classic antivirus software, as users from their private computers know. The Falcon Sensor program is designed to monitor the device like a hawk with sharp eyes, blocking suspicious activities and collecting access analysis data. However, Crowdstrike released a defective updated version for this program, which paralyzed the version for Windows systems. As a result, the systems of many of the 29,000 business customers around the world collapsed. By the way, the geographic focus of computer chaos is a good description of the company’s most important markets: in addition to the US, these are the UK, Germany, India and Australia. In the US, some companies faced another problem. Microsoft reported the failure of its cloud infrastructure in an area. By Friday morning, however, the software manufacturer had largely reinstated the services – such as the Microsoft 365 program package with Office software – into operation. Crowdstrike customers should be able to fix the problem with an update. However, the software cannot be installed automatically and remotely as usual. Instead, IT departments must restart systems manually using a special procedure. The effort required cannot be accurately appreciated, but it is likely to be huge, said Sebastian Schreiber, head of the Syss IT security service provider. “The IT departments of all companies using the product are currently doing nothing else,” he said in an interview with Handelsblatt. The incident raises fundamental questions regarding the protection of IT systems. Sys’ boss Schreiber points out: “Computer security software has extensive privileges and can therefore also cause a computer system to collapse”. In other words, the programmes intervene deeply in critical procedures so that they can prevent risks – with drastic consequences in case mistakes occur. Computer scientist sees a fundamental problem in the industry: “Many security programs increase computer complexity”. In some cases there is also a lack of quality. In the past, for example, there were virus scanners who were themselves vulnerable to malicious software. “The question is: who watches the screens?” The association of the Internet Eco industry also referred to dependence on software suppliers. The speed of digitization can be increased with their products, explained CEO Norbert Pohlmann. However, today’s example shows that this increases risks. Pohlmann, an internet security professor at Gelsenkirchen University of Applied Sciences, demanded: “For this reason, user companies must clearly determine their dependence on software suppliers and focus much more on their IT security.” There is not only Crowdstrike, it concludes the same report.