CrowdStrike: What we know about the tech giant at centre of global IT outage
ITV News explains what the company CrowdStrike does and who is behind the Tech company
Healthcare, business, travel and retail services across the globe have been brought to a standstill as a result of an IT fault.
The UK government's crisis officials are coordinating a response, and the Cobra system that deals with matters of national emergency or major disruption has been activated.
At the heart of the issue is a software update issued by firm CrowdStrike.
In this particular case, computers running Microsoft Windows appear to be crashing because of the faulty way the update is interacting with the Windows system.
But what does CrowdStrike do and who is behind the tech giant? ITV News explains.
What is CrowdStrike?
CrowdStrike is a security company that provide services to other businesses to help prevent cyber attacks - detecting and blocking hacking threats.
The company is worth more than 65 billion pounds.
How does it work?
The software requires deep-level access to a computer’s operating system to scan for threats.
It leverages cloud technology to manage policies, manage and respond to threats, and control reporting of data.
CrowdStrike can work offline or online to analyse files. The Falcon platform (the specific platform in question in relation to the outage) uses a two-step process for identifying threats.
This is first done locally on the device in question for immediate response to a potential threat.
This threat is then sent to the cloud for a secondary analysis. Based on the prevention policies defined for the device in question, additional action may be required if the cloud analysis differs from the local analysis of the threat.
Who are its customers?
A variety of the biggest businesses on the planet including the likes of Amazon, Virgin and Visa.
Who is behind the company?
The cyber security firm was initially co-founded by George Kurtz and Dmitri Alperovitch in 2011.
It's purpose, according to its website, was to develop a brand new approach to cyber security which would not only find malware but those deploying it.
George Kurtz is now the sole CEO and founder who is an internationally recognized security expert.
He has more than 30 years of experience with previous roles at McAfee - another cyber security company.
Speaking on NBC's Today Show, he said a fix had been found but it could be some time before all systems return to normal.
"It is our mission to make sure every customer is fully recovered. We're not going to relent until we get every customer back to where they were," he said.
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