Watch: CrowdStrike CEO Fumbles on Live TV After Massive IT Outage

In one of the biggest IT failures ever recorded, a worldwide technological outage on Friday brought Microsoft services to a grinding halt, impacting millions of users globally. The disruption has affected a wide range of services, including flight operations, cloud services and Office 365 apps.

The disruption has been traced back to CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm known for its Falcon Sensor software. CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz appeared visibly shaken during his apology, struggling to explain the situation.

Speaking on NBC’s Today TV programme hours after the outage, George Kurtz was clearly anxious and fumbled when asked how one update could create such a widespread issue. According to the company, a bug in an upgrade to Falcon Sensor, one of CrowdStrike’s software products, caused massive technical problems worldwide by rigging up Windows systems.

When pressed about why there wasn’t a backup system to prevent such a scenario, Kurtz struggled to provide a clear answer, needing to pause to get a sip of water to get his words out. A video of his response has gone viral on social media platform X, amassing over 2 million views.

The caption read, “Omg. Crowdstrike CEO starts panicking and choking on his words when the media asks him why a single content update could shut down the entire system. Look at how nervous this man is. What is he hiding?”

In the comments section, a user stated, “This is big. He knows. He’s in big trouble.”

Another user stated, “Yes he looks nervous. That update was failed risk management.”

“Because is was a cyber attack and they are too embarrassed to admit it . Any update on a system can be undone in seconds,” read another comment.

The CrowdStrike CEO later clarified that the disruption stemmed from a content upgrade, not a hack. He explained that a software defect in the update caused issues with Microsoft operating systems, leading to widespread problems.

Kurtz admitted that the company would need to “go back and see what happened” to understand how a single content change could cause such extensive disruptions. He stated that you will receive a response similar to this if there is an issue with the way any of these operating systems function—in this example, just a Microsoft operating system was affected.

He clarified that the upgrade was typical and a component of the business’s routine procedure to guard against security threats.