This week:
It’s a holiday weekend here in Ireland, so for this edition, let’s look at some fun facts..
about the biggest cyber outage..
since the last one!
3 – The likely cost of the CrowdStrike outage.
“Financial losses globally from the outage could total around $15 billion.”
Summary:
Large companies in the US could face over $5 billion in losses from the recent CrowdStrike outage, according to one insurer (Parametrix). Insured losses are estimated between $540 million and $1.08 billion, with estimated losses across the world likely to be in the region of $15 billion.
So what?
If you ever have a ‘bad day in the office’, these numbers will hopefully give you some perspective!
Source: Reuters (via Risky Biz)
2 – CrowdStrike’s security platform may make it more difficult to get security insurance.
“No matter how much you charge, you should tell yourself that each time you write a cyber insurance policy, you’re losing money”
Summary:
This a quote from the head of insurance operations at Berkshire Hathaway (where Warren Buffett is the CEO). He also recently said they are “very, very careful when it comes to taking on cyber insurance liabilities [because] there’s not enough data [to] say what your true loss cost is”.
While cyber insurance is fashionable and a seemingly-profitable business for its competitors, he believes this may not be real profit, with future claims likely to exceed whatever premium income is being earned today.
So what?
This was first reported in May. I wonder if his his view has changed since the CrowdStrike incident.
Source: Insurance Journal
1 – The interesting career of the CrowdStrike CEO.
“On April 21, 2010, the antivirus company McAfee released an update to its software used by its corporate customers. The update deleted a key Windows file, causing millions of computers around the world to crash and repeatedly reboot.”
Summary:
A global IT outage caused by McAfee in 2010 appears to be very similar to the one recently caused by CrowdStrike.
The similarities don’t end there.
Because the Chief Technology Officer of McAfee at that time is now the CEO of CrowdStrike.
Apparently, a few months after the McAfee incident, Intel bought McAfee. Soon after that, the CTO left the company. He went on to found CrowdStrike in 2012 and has been its CEO ever since.
So what?
His next career move will probably be watched very closely.
Source: Business Insider
[Final note: At the time of writing, the CrowdStrike share price had fallen to $224 (from a high of about $390 in early July). To put this in perspective, it means it is now at the same price that it was 9 months ago. So, despite the global disruption, stock market investors haven’t lost faith in the company. Capitalism at its finest!]