Crowdstrike CEO Called to Testify to Congress Over Cybersecurity’s Firm Role in Global Tech Outage

This photograph shows screens displaying the logo of “CrowdStrike” cybersecurity technology company in Paris on July 19, 2024, amid massive global IT outage. Airlines, banks, TV channels and other business across the globe were scrambling to deal with one of the biggest IT crashes in recent years on July 19, 2024, caused by an update to an antivirus program. Microsoft said in a technical update on its website that the problems began at 1900 GMT on July 18, affecting users of its Azure cloud platform running cybersecurity software CrowdStrike Falcon. (Photo by Stefano RELLANDINI / AFP) (Photo by STEFANO RELLANDINI/AFP via Getty Images)

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. House leaders are calling on CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz to testify to Congress about the cybersecurity company’s role in sparking the widespread tech outage that grounded flights, knocked banks and hospital systems offline and affected services around the world. CrowdStrike said this week a “significant number” of the millions of computers that crashed on Friday, causing global disruptions, are back in operation as its customers and regulators await a more detailed explanation of what went wrong. Republicans who lead the House Homeland Security committee said Monday they want those answers soon.