A US House committee called on the chief executive officer of CrowdStrike Holdings to testify on a defective software update that caused widespread global outages.
The House Committee on Homeland Security requested the appearance of CEO George Kurtz, and it asked CrowdStrike to promptly schedule a date.
“In less than one day, we have seen major impacts to key functions of the global economy, including aviation, healthcare, banking, media and emergency services,” committee chair Mark Green, a Tennessee Republican; and Representative Andrew Garbarino, a New York Republican and chairman of the panel’s Subcommittee on Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection, wrote in a letter to Kurtz on Monday.
“Recognising that Americans will undoubtedly feel the lasting, real-world consequences of this incident, they deserve to know in detail how this incident happened and the mitigation steps CrowdStrike is taking,” they wrote.
A CrowdStrike spokesperson said on Monday evening that the company was in discussion with congressional committees, which have the power to compel testimony by issuing subpoenas but usually first ask potential witnesses to appear voluntarily.
Other congressional committees have asked company officials for briefings on the outage, its causes and CrowdStrike’s response.
See also: Global IT collapse puts cyber firm CrowdStrike in spotlight
Last week’s outage was blamed on a defect in a software update and impacted CrowdStrike customers using Microsoft Windows. The impact of the outage rippled across the globe and disrupted health-care systems, airlines, ports, companies and governments.
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CrowdStrike has been a top pick of The Edge Singapore's in-house analyst Thiveyen Kathirrasan since 2021. As at July 19, the day of the outage, its stock price had risen some 277% over the past five years.
See also: Web services of SGX and certain payment methods in CDG app affected amid global IT outage
Read more about this Nasdaq-listed company:
- From 2021: CrowdStrike Holdings: Growing niche
- From 2022: CrowdStrike Holdings: This is one winner we are keeping
- From 2023: CrowdStrike Holdings: Keeping the faith
- From 2023: CrowdStrike Holdings: Best-performing counter with consistently improving numbers
- From 2024: CrowdStrike Holdings: Keeping faith with this winner
