A cyber security company’s technical glitch caused pandemonium on Friday as the global IT outage affected over eight million computers and disrupted everything from airline travel to online sports betting sites like BetMGM.
Tech Gets Glitchy
A popular cyber security company called CrowdStrike made a processing error that affected 8.5 million computers and caused everything ranging from flight delays to banking disruptions all over the world. Among those businesses affected was BetMGM, co-owned by MGM Resorts and Entain, as well as a Canada-based sportsbook owned exclusively by Entain called Sports Interaction.
A company message from BetMGM on Friday morning said, “BetMGM is experiencing temporary issues due to global IT outages. We are working hard to resolve this and will update customers when we are up and running. Thank you for your patience.”
At 1:45 PM the outage continued with BetMGM releasing an update stating, “Our teams are working hard to get everything up and running, and we will update you once we’re fully restored.”
Sports Interaction released its own update stating, “We are impacted as well! Due to the global outage affecting various industries, our site is in maintenance mode. We aim to resume operations this afternoon. Your account is secure. Our teams are ready, but the outage may restrict full assistance. We apologize for any inconvenience.”
Other Entain brands like Ladbrokes also went dark as they all share the same cybersecurity protection from CrowdStrike. The company Entain uses to keep its sites running uninterrupted proved to be the root cause of their service outage.
CrowdStrike Apologizes
Although many before Friday’s technology apocalypse may not have heard of CrowdStrike, it is an $80 billion company that protects a range of businesses across the globe and has the highest level of clearance from the U.S. Department of Defense in combating domestic and international cyber-attacks.
But after Friday, the mainstream has become aware of who they are and it was not a pleasant introduction to the general public. Handling a high-profile crisis requires a reassuring tone and a leader who instills trust in those affected. Passing the buck and failing to apologize is never a good approach but that is precisely what many believe CrowdStrike CEO, George Kurtz, did initially and it did not go over well.
“CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts. Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted. This is not a security incident or cyberattack,” CEO George Kurtz said. “The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed. We refer customers to the support portal for the latest updates and will continue to provide complete and continuous updates on our website.”
Shift in Tone
Kurtz did nothing to dissuade people from blaming Microsoft but it wasn’t long before he took a different approach when he appeared on the TODAY Show on NBC, a network that was also negatively impacted by the CrowdStrike blunder.
“Today was not a security or cyber incident. Our customers remain fully protected. We understand the gravity of the situation and are deeply sorry for the inconvenience and disruption.” Kurtz continued, “We are working with all impacted customers to ensure that systems are back up and they can deliver the services their customers are counting on. As noted earlier, the issue has been identified and a fix has been deployed. There was an issue with a Falcon content update for Windows Hosts.”
CrowdStrike’s stock price closed down 11% at the close of trading on Friday.
