CrowdStrike

CrowdStrike Inc. was founded in 2011 by George Kurtz, Dmitri Alperovich and Greg Marston. Deals with cybersecurity issues.

Performance indicators

2018: Revenue - $250 million; losses - $140 million

At the end of the fiscal year, which ended on January 31, 2019 calendar, CrowdStrike's net loss amounted to $140 million, an increase of $5 million compared to cash losses a year ago. The company's revenue during this time increased from $119 million to $250 million.

History

2024: Worldwide 'global IT outage' due to defective Crowdstrike antivirus update

The global IT failure in July 2024 was caused by Crowdstrike antivirus when interacting with Windows. A lot of companies around the world just don't work.

Absolutely all Windows computers running CrowdStrike do not work, Bloomberg reported.

The erroneous software update from CrowdStrike Holdings Inc. has affected 8.5 million devices worldwide.

The outage affects all Microsoft products, causing major disruptions to banks, utilities, airlines, the Microsofts, telecommunications, cellular, the Internet and other stems.

In Ukraine, failures in the work of telecom operators and banks.

United Airlines and Delta Airlines have also suspended flights due to communications issues stemming from the ongoing global disruption, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration said.

Indian news channel Times Now reports that the cause of the global glitch is "the recent CrowdStrike update."

Turkish Airlines also suspended flights due to a "big global disruption."

All airports in Spain have experienced a "computer systems incident" following the CrowdStrike crash.

The British television channel SkyNews was disconnected from the network due to a global glitch.

Several airports in Britain have also been forced to suspend flights.

Many companies are likely to take days or even weeks to fully recover from the unprecedented computer outage.

2021

SecureCircle Acquisition

CrowdStrike has announced the acquisition of SecureCircle, a data protection company. This became known on November 1, 2021. Read more here.

Acquisition of startup Humio

Funds vendor, information security CrowdStrike on February 18, 2021 announced the acquisition of British a startup Humio whose flagship product is a platform for analyzing event logs cloudy in environments. More. here

2019

Trump - Zelensky: Information security company of a native of Russia hides the server of Democrats in Ukraine

On October 21, 2019, CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz expressed surprise that the company's name was mentioned in a conversation between US and Ukrainian Presidents Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky.

For me, this surprise. In our understanding, I think we are just invited all the time for expert work, "he said during the Tech Live conference organized by The Wall Street Journal.

Kurtz made this statement after the US presidential administration released a transcript of the Trump-Zelensky conversation at the end of September 2019, during which the American leader asked his Ukrainian counterpart to check CrowdStrike, one of the founders of which is a native of Russia Dmitry Alperovich.

Meeting between Volodymyr Zelensky and Donald Trump

I would like you to do me one service, because recently our country has experienced a lot, and Ukraine has valuable information in this regard. Would like to ask you to find out what happened in the CrowdStrike situation then. I think you have wealthy people, "Trump said in a conversation with Zelensky, after which the impeachment procedure of the US president was launched.

Trump did not explain how Ukraine can check the American information security company. Earlier, a certain whistleblower sent a complaint to congressmen in which he claimed that Trump mentioned CrowdStrike's role in the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 US election.

Then the National Committee of the Democratic Party of the United States signed a contract with CrowdStrike, under which the company was supposed to investigate how hackers hacked the organization's security system and handed over stolen emails to Wikileaks, as well as data on Hillary Clinton's election campaign.

 Even before the US presidential election , CrowdStrike was a contractor for Democrats - providing Internet security for the party. After serious leaks in CrowdStrike, they began to talk about a certain "Russian trace." The company said that  the Russian authorities were allegedly behind the hack. According to experts, these hackers are "the source of the greatest Internet threat ever discovered."

Then the hacker Guccifer 2.0, who took responsibility for hacking into the servers of the Democratic National Committee, called this characteristic a compliment. In his blog, Guccifer 2.0 wrote:

I am very pleased that the company appreciated my work so much.  But it was actually easy.

 In this regard, many expressed the opinion that CrowdStrike tried to justify its failure by the intervention of powerful forces.

In a conversation with Zelensky, Trump said that, according to him, the server of the National Democratic Committee, with which CrowdStrike worked during the investigation, ended up in Ukraine. It is assumed that Trump wanted to ask Zelensky to find them and hand them over to the American authorities.

In that situation, a lot of things happened. In my opinion, you surround yourself with the same people. I would like you or your people to get a call from the U.S. attorney general and you find out the smallest details, "Trump said.

Trump, in a conversation with Zelensky, which led to a political scandal in the United States, not only asked to check the actions of his possible rival in the election, but also mentioned CrowdStrike, known for investigations into Russian hackers

George Kurtz at the Tech Live conference said that the conspiracy theory in which Ukraine was allegedly behind the hacking of computer systems of the US Democratic National Committee was "refuted" by both the company and American intelligence. The CrowdStrike report concluded that Russian hackers were behind the cyber attack.

You know, I'm not a politician. I'm a security guard and we're just focused on the safety of our customers, "Kurtz reported, adding that the question of why Trump mentioned CrowdStrike is worth redirecting to the president himself.[1]

Going public: share growth by 97%, capitalization - $11.41 billion

On June 12, 2019, CrowdStrike went public. Trading in the shares was opened at $63.5, which is 97% more than the IPO price ($67). By the close of Nasdaq, the value of securities was $58, and the market capitalization was $11.41 billion. For comparison, in June 2018, investors valued the company at $3 billion when they invested $200 million in it.

According to Bloomberg, CrowdStrike raised $612 million, making this IPO in the information security market the fourth largest of all time. Only Avast, Gemalto and Sophos earned more on the listing.

Information security company CrowdStrike went public and almost caught up with Symantec in value

CrowdStrike almost caught up with Symantec in value, which went public in 1989 and then raised $16.5 million. By June 12, 2019, Symantec's market capitalization was measured at $11.86 billion.

With a successful IPO, Crowdstrike CEO George Kurtz became a billionaire. He owns only about 10% of the company - though a portion of his stock is deposited as collateral for the loan, according to filings provided to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). According to Forbes magazine, after deducting the pledged shares, the fortune of 48-year-old Kurtz is a little more than $1 billion.

After the successful listing of Crowdstrike, Kurtz said that the company's technologies stand out from other security solutions using cloud technology.

Security wasn't its Salesforce. And we think we have chosen the right approach and created an architecture worthy of becoming such a fourth pillar of cloud computing, "he said.[2]

2017

For 2017, it monitors cyber threats in more than 170 countries. One of CrowdStrike's main products at this time is the Falcon platform, which provides cloud-based information protection. According to the company, its clients are three of the ten largest global companies in terms of revenue, five of the ten leading financial institutions in the world, as well as three of the ten largest energy companies.

Since 2011, CrowdStrike has raised more than $150 million in investments. The company is headquartered in Irvine, California. CEO - George Kurtz, chief engineer - Dmitry Alperovich.

2015: Revenue - $27.3 million

Revenue for 2015 - $27.3 million.

2014: CrowdStrike accuses Russia of large-scale espionage

In early 2014, CrowdStrike accused Russia of large-scale espionage in Western and Asian companies. CrowdStrike said it had evidence of Russian government-orchestrated espionage in U.S., European and Asian energy and health care companies and government agencies. The goal of Russia is to strengthen economic positions in the main industries, said Dmitry Alperovich, CTO of CrowdStrike^[3].

A group of Russian hackers whose activities CrowdStrike followed for two years - in 2012-2013, allegedly called Energetic Bear. Hackers have implemented malware injection through popular document readers such as Adobe Reader, according to the company. The company believed that the group's activities were carried out in the interests of some Russian structures, possibly with the support of Russian government organizations, as indicated by technical indicators, as well as an analysis of espionage targets and stolen data. So, according to CrowdStrike, all the objects of attacks of the Energetic Bear group were outside the Russian Federation: most of them (about 25%) in the United States, more than 25% in the EU countries, about 12% in Japan, etc., in a total of 23 countries.

CrowdStrike's annual report on cyber threats also mentions hackers from China and Iran and the Syrian Electronic Army. CrowdStrike previously accused the Chinese authorities of espionage in 2005, but China actively denied the accusations.

Notes