CrowdStrike largest IT outage in history; cost more than $5B

Cybersecurity researcher Troy Hunt – who runs the HaveIBeenPwned website – predicted that the CrowdStrike failure would set a record as the largest IT outage in history, and the numbers seem to back him up.

Cyber insurance company Parametrix has put together some estimates of the cost of the outage, with healthcare companies worst hit, and airlines not far behind …

Axios reports Parametric’s estimate that the total cost of the outage just for Fortune 500 companies was $5.4B.

All Fortune 500 airlines and roughly 75% of the top healthcare organizations and banks were affected by the outages. Parametrix estimates that total insured losses across the Fortune 500 fall between $540 million and $1.08 billion.

The healthcare sector took the biggest collective hit, losing roughly $1.9 billion to the outages. In comparison, airlines lost about $860 million, according to Parametrix’s analysis.

Ironically, the IT sector was least affected, because most developers run their systems on Linux.

CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz says that 97% of affected machines are now back online.

I want to share that over 97% of Windows sensors are back online as of July 25. This progress is thanks to the tireless efforts of our customers, partners, and the dedication of our team at CrowdStrike. However, we understand our work is not yet complete, and we remain committed to restoring every impacted system.

To our customers still affected, please know we will not rest until we achieve full recovery. At CrowdStrike, our mission is to earn your trust by safeguarding your operations. I am deeply sorry for the disruption this outage has caused and personally apologize to everyone impacted.

The company decided to add insult to injury by offering $10 Uber Eats vouchers to its clients. My math isn’t the best, but I think those won’t make too much of a dent in $5.4B …

Photo by Milad Fakurian on Unsplash