CrowdStrike outage reportedly cost over $5.4 billion for top companies alone

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Who was hit hardest?

Windows 11 on Mac with Parallels
(Image credit: Andrew Williams)

Last week's staggering CrowdStrike outage was already considered the largest in IT history, but the true cost is becoming clearer.

Axios reports that 1 in 4 Fortune 500 companies suffered service disruption due to the CrowdStrike issues, and combined, those companies lost a combined $5.4 billion because of the outage.

That data comes from cyber insurance firm Parametrix, which has compiled a report on the outage and its fallout.

"All Fortune 500 airlines and roughly 75% of the top healthcare organizations and banks were affected by the outages," Axios reports. "Parametrix estimates that total insured losses across the Fortune 500 fall between $540 million and $1.08 billion."

Healthcare hit hardest

According to Parametric's data, the healthcare sector lost roughly $1.9 billion, putting it in the unenviable "top spot" of losses for the outage, while the IT sector ranks bottom.

21% of IT-related services saw outages, with the number lower than other sectors because they predominantly operate on Linux and so were unaffected.

As per the Parametric report "This could be viewed as a silver lining, because a high impact on this sector would have resulted in an even larger ripple effect, given this sector includes some of the largest service providers in the world."

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Lloyd Coombes
Lloyd Coombes
Contributor

Lloyd Coombes is a freelance writer with a specialism in Apple tech. From his first, hand-me-down iMac, he’s been working with Apple products for over a decade, and while he loves his iPhone and Mac, the iPad will always have his heart for reasons he still can’t quite fathom. Since moving from blogging to writing professionally, Lloyd’s work can be found at TechRadar, Macworld, TechAdvisor and plenty more. He’s also the Editor in Chief at GGRecon.com, and on the rare occasion he’s not writing you’ll find him spending time with his son, or working hard at the gym (while wearing an Apple Watch, naturally). You can find him on Twitter @lloydcoombes.

3 Comments Comment from the forums
  • FFR

    Well the “Microsoft outage” did affect over a billion windows computers worldwide.

    Macs and iPhones were unaffected
    Reply
  • Just_Me_D
    Per the article, total insured estimates across the Fortune 500 fall between $540 million and $1.08 billion and the healthcare sector lost roughly $1.9 billion. 21% of IT-related services saw outages, with the number lower than other sectors because they predominantly operate on Linux and so were unaffected.
    Reply
  • FFR
    Windows is , the “Microsoft outage” killed it

    Reply