For those that may not know, several technology executives are testifying today before the US Senate Intelligence Committee regarding last year’s SolarWinds hack. The leaders include SolarWinds CEO Sudhakar Ramakrishna, Microsoft President Brad Smith, FireEye CEO Kevin Mandia, and our own CrowdStrike President and CEO George Kurtz.
CrowdStrike helped identify the initial attack by the SolarWinds hackers last year.
Cybersecurity continues to be at the forefront of national interest, and rightfully so. Last year, CRWD noted that in H1 2020 they stopped more potential breaches than in all of 2019. eCrime has continued to escalate throughout the COVID crisis, causing significant economic damage. The 2019-2020 Radware Global Application & Network Security Report listed costs of (on average) $480,000 for smaller companies (rev <$1B), and $1.7MM for larger companies per cyberattack. Prudent C-Suites, then, should be willing to invest to mitigate future damage.
Today, Kurtz has not minced words with the Senate Intelligence Committee, stating outright that Microsoft’s technology was “antiquated”. He believes that, “The threat actor took advantage of systemic weaknesses in the Windows authentication architecture, allowing it to move laterally within the network”.
With this testimony soon in the rear-view and earnings ahead, I am as bullish as ever on CRWD and happy to see leadership prominently featured in the national cybersecurity discussion.