By: Matthew Wang
On July 19, 2024, a faulty software update from cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike rocked the world as 8.5 million Windows computers went offline, leaving tens of thousands of people stranded without critical infrastructure. As the aftermath from the tech outage presses on, many members of Congress are calling for a hearing against the company to ensure the future security of America’s critical infrastructure.
The tech outage was caused by an erroneous update to the popular Crowdstrike software Falcon, a Windows program designed to protect against cyber attacks, resulting in affected computers failing to boot. Due to the software’s high level access and high profile usage by big businesses, the faulty program quickly caused chaos as critical programs went offline. Although the issue was fixed in a matter of hours, according to the BBC, a reported 8.5 million computers were affected, with many having to be manually rolled back to repair the damage.
Several businesses affected by the wide hitting outage include several airliners, with Delta and United Airlines being the hardest hit. According to the airline tracking website flightaware, almost 40,000 flights were delayed on Monday, with around 8000 canceled flights throughout the entire period of the outage.
This has led to tens of thousands of tourists to be left stranded, their flights canceled with little knowledge on when they would return home as airlines scramble to repair their systems.
Major businesses like airliners were not the only ones hit however, with the tech outage disrupting several emergency services such as a multitude of large hospitals. According to a report by CNN, “Large hospital systems, including Mass General Brigham in Massachusetts, Penn Medicine in Pennsylvania, Mount Sinai Health System in New York all reported Friday they were affected by the outage.” Several additional emergency services, namely 911, also were affected by the tech outage, showcasing to the general public the world’s precarious reliance on just a handful of software firms.
Due to the catastrophic damage caused by the mistakes of a singular company, many in Congress are calling for action against Crowdstrike for its role in the global debacle. As reported in the New York Times, Representative Mark Green, the Republican chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, and Representative Andrew Garbarino of New York wrote that “[Americans] “deserve to know in detail how this incident happened and the mitigation steps CrowdStrike is taking.” According to the same source, a hearing was later set up with results being released at the representatives’ discretion.