Congress will hold its first hearing on the global CrowdStrike outage later this month, with a House Homeland Security subcommittee set to examine the incident. The hearing, scheduled for September 24, will feature testimony from Adam Meyers, CrowdStrike’s senior vice president of counter adversary operations. The incident, which impacted around 8.5 million Windows devices, was caused by a faulty security update rather than a cyberattack.
The hearing could signal how much trust CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity leader, has lost in Washington and with its clients. Lawmakers, including Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.), who chairs the cybersecurity subcommittee, see the outage as a reminder of the importance of cyber hygiene and resilience in an increasingly risky digital landscape. CrowdStrike has been collaborating with congressional committees in the wake of the event. While CEO George Kurtz wasn’t called to testify, he acknowledged the growing scrutiny on deals with the company during an earnings call last week.
Though CrowdStrike had previously enjoyed strong goodwill on Capitol Hill, this hearing could be a turning point. However, it seems the focus will be on the broader issue of supply chain security rather than solely on the company’s handling of the incident.