One in four Fortune 500 companies experienced outages during computer outages around the world last Friday caused by a botched CrowdStrike software update, with cyber insurer Parametrix estimating total losses at $5.4 billion, Axios reports.
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Each company affected by the CrowdStrike outage lost an average of $43.6 million, according to Parametrix statistics – the problem affected all Fortune 500 airlines, as well as approximately 75% of leading banks and healthcare organizations. Total insured losses across all Fortune 500 companies ranged from $540 million to $1.08 billion; The healthcare sector suffered the largest cumulative loss, amounting to approximately $1.9 billion, while airlines lost approximately $860 million.
At the end of 2023, CrowdStrike accounted for only 15% of the market in the cybersecurity software segment, but in the Fortune 500 list this share is significantly higher – 298 companies, the developer himself said. One of the least affected industries was the software and IT services sector: only 21% of companies experienced outages, since most of them run Linux, and systems of this family were not affected by the incident. And this is a positive thing, Parametrix noted, since disruptions in the technology sector would create an even greater ripple effect – the sector includes the largest service providers in the world.