What to know about Austin-based cybersecurity company CrowdStrike

AUSTIN (KXAN) — A bug in a cybersecurity update released by Austin-based cybersecurity company CrowdStrike caused affected computers to continually restart Friday, creating global system outages, according to information released by the company .

CrowdStrike was founded in 2011, with an initial public offering in 2019 . It designated its official headquarters as Austin in 2021 to meet requirements set by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), but defines itself as a “remote-first” company with ties to many communities around the world.

Its first product, CrowdStrike Falcon, was released in 2013 and is the company’s flagship product. A component of that product, Falcon Sensor, was the program that received the faulty update.

CrowdStrike’s Founder and CEO George Kurtz released a statement regarding the outage .

I want to sincerely apologize directly to all of you for today’s outage. All of CrowdStrike understands the gravity and impact of the situation. We quickly identified the issue and deployed a fix, allowing us to focus diligently on restoring customer systems as our highest priority.

The outage was caused by a defect found in a Falcon content update for Windows hosts. Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted. This was not a cyberattack.

We are working closely with impacted customers and partners to ensure that all systems are restored, so you can deliver the services your customers rely on.

Kurtz said in part

The company’s stock price still made a rapid drop at the start of trading Friday, but is still ahead of its six-month and year-over-year performance, according to NASDAQ data. Currently, the stock has dropped 9.15% to $311.72 per share, below its previous close of $343.05. It began to rally just before 10 a.m. ET.

According to the company, the greater Falcon platform is “AI-native,” using generative AI and workflow automation.

“With generative AI as the foundation of the Falcon platform, we are unifying Security and IT by empowering teams to ask a question, answer it and take action on any IT issue, as easily as having a conversation, all from a single platform experience,” said George Kurtz, CrowdStrike CEO and co-founder in a February press release . “This is the future of modern security.”

Kurtz previously worked as cybersecurity company McAfee’s chief technology officer and authored the book “Hacking Exposed: Network Security Secrets & Solutions.”

In addition to software, the company also provides security consulting. It also previously assisted in the investigation of major cybersecurity events, such as the Sony Pictures hack and the 2016 hack of the Democratic National Committee, according to reporting by CSO and Forbes .

The company’s annual report , filed in May, shows a confident position with the company telling its investors that Falcon is the future of the cybersecurity industry.

“Using cloud-scale AI, our Security Cloud enriches and correlates trillions of cybersecurity events per week…to create actionable data, identify shifts in adversary tactics, and automatically prevent threats in real-time across our customer base,” the filing reads, “The more data that is fed into our Falcon platform, the more intelligent our Security Cloud becomes, and the more our customers benefit, creating a powerful network effect that increases the overall value we provide.”

The filing includes an audit report from CrowdStrike’s accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. That audit found healthy numbers for the company, with an increase in revenue and shareholder equity year-over-year from 2023.

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