Systems paralyzed by CrowdStrike within 78 minutes to cause $15 billion in losses worldwide

While most of the Windows devices have already recovered from last week’s CrowdStrike fiasco, it is time to shift focus on the damages that the global IT disruption event caused.

The insurance company Parametrix estimates the impact on 2023 Fortune 500 companies to be roughly $5.4 billion. However, the analysis does not include Microsoft which Parametrix considered “a key player in the event.”

In total, 125 corporations, respectively 25 % of the Fortune 500 list were negatively affected. Although the damages are significant, only a fraction – 10 to 20 % – of the losses were insured. This represents $0.54 to $1.08 billion.

By far the worst affected sector was the airline companies. All airliners on the list were impacted with the damages averaging $148,38 million, easily the worst average among all industry sectors. The highest cumulative losses, $1.94 billion, are expected in the healthcare sector with banking being a distant second ($1.15 billion). The average loss of a Fortune 500 company is estimated to be $43.64 million.

The global numbers sound even crazier, though. Parametrix CEO Jonatan Hatzor told Reuters that the CrowdStrike outage could total $15 billion in losses worldwide. Only a fraction, $1.5 to $3 billion, would be covered by insurance.

Shortly after the unprecedented event, Microsoft confirmed that CrowdStrike's update issue affected 8.5 million Windows devices, less than one percent of all Windows machines. And while CrowdStrike claims that over 97 % of Windows sensors are now back online, Microsoft expects that full recovery of all computers may take several weeks.

All the devices were “infected” by a faulty update within just a 78-minute-long window before CrowdStrike reverted the update.

“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,” said CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz.

Source

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