On Tuesday, Adam Meyers, senior vice president of CrowdStrike Holdings Inc., found himself under the scrutiny of House lawmakers. The focus of their attention? A global technology outage that occurred in July, which disrupted thousands of flights and impacted businesses across industries.
The House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Cybersecurity and Infrastructure held the first hearing to address the July 19 update mishap by CrowdStrike. During his opening remarks, Meyers expressed regret for the incident, stating, “We are deeply sorry this happened and are determined to prevent it from happening again.”
The faulty update, released by CrowdStrike, crashed computers running Microsoft Corporation’s Windows software, leading to a widespread disruption. While Meyers assured lawmakers that the outage wasn’t the result of a cyberattack, he acknowledged that it was caused by a rapid response content update from CrowdStrike. He stated, “I can assure you that we will take the lessons learned from this incident and use them to inform our work as we improve for the future.”
The hearing delved into the critical issue of artificial intelligence (AI) and its role in the update process. Representative Mark Green (R-Tenn.), chair of the Homeland Security Committee, questioned Meyers about the executive responsible for approving the update and whether AI played a part in the decision. Meyers clarified that AI was not involved in the decision-making process, explaining that the update was one of many released daily by the company. He further revealed that the firm has implemented changes to prevent a recurrence of the issue, such as halting the simultaneous deployment of updates to all customers.
This global IT outage, attributed to CrowdStrike’s software update, was described as the “largest IT outage in history”. Its impact was far-reaching, affecting airlines, banks, media outlets, and even emergency services. Following the incident, Delta Air Lines, Inc., reported an estimated revenue impact of $380 million for the September quarter due to flight cancellations and customer compensation. Microsoft pointed the finger at Delta for its prolonged recovery from the outage, claiming that the airline’s lack of IT modernization contributed to the extended downtime. Delta, however, defended its IT infrastructure, highlighting its significant investments in IT capital expenditures since 2016.
The hearing provided a platform for lawmakers to examine the implications of such large-scale technology failures and the increasing reliance on AI in critical systems. It also shed light on the ongoing challenges in ensuring the security and reliability of our digital infrastructure in an increasingly interconnected world.
