CrowdStrike's CEO also linked with similar crisis in 2010 via McAfee

By Gokhan Ergocun

ISTANBUL (AA) - The CEO of US based cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, whose update caused a major global IT outage, was also linked with a similar crisis in 2010.

Last week, CrowdStrike's update caused an important crisis in the IT history of the world by damaging many sectors from aviation to banking.

In 2010, another cybersecurity firm McAfee revealed an update, including DAT file with version 5958, causing very similar interruption by damaging computers using Windows.

George Kurtz, the CEO and founder of CrowdStrike was the chief technology officer of McAfee between 2019 and 2011, according to LinkedIn.

McAfee's harmful update paralyzed thousands of computers, especially corporate devices.

After this crisis, McAfee was purchased by tech giant Intel for $7.7 billion in August 2010.

Kurtz established CrowdStrike in 2012.

CrowdStrike's crisis damaged much more computers in the world; airports closed, airlines suspended flights, even hospitals saw interruptions.

An US based monitoring firm Parametrix's data showed that just Fortune 500 firms' loss reached $5.4 billion related to CrowdStrike crisis.

While the price of CrowdStrike share was around $380 during July, after the outage, it dropped around 30% to $266.