CrowdStrike CEO says 97% of Windows sensors back online after major outage

CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz said that over 97% of Windows sensors are back online after an update from the cybersecurity firm caused one of the world’s biggest IT outages.

“To our customers still affected, please know we will not rest until we achieve full recovery,” Kurtz said in a LinkedIn post on Thursday.

Last week, CrowdStrike issued a routine update to its users around the world — which mainly comprise large businesses — that had a bug which caused Microsoft’s Windows operating system to crash.

Many users woke up on Friday to a blue screen error on Windows. The IT outage sparked chaos around the world, with flights being cancelled, businesses closing early and even medical staff scrambling to keep operations running.

CrowdStrike rolled back the update to fix the issue.

The company’s share price has been hammered since the incident, as CEO Kurtz looks to contain the reputational fallout.

“I am deeply sorry for the disruption this outage has caused and personally apologize to everyone impacted. While I can’t promise perfection, I can promise a response that is focused, effective, and with a sense of urgency,” he wrote on LinkedIn.

To apologize for the incident, CrowdStrike sent Uber Eats gift cards to “teammates and partners who have been helping customers through this situation,” a company spokesperson told CNBC.

TechCrunch previously reported the news and added that some people were having trouble using the gift card.

“Uber flagged it as fraud because of high usage rates,” a CrowdStrike spokesperson said.