Republican representatives call on CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz to testify

Republican representatives on Monday called on CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz to testify in front of the House Committee on Homeland Security, days after the company issued a faulty software update that crashed millions of Microsoft Windows devices.

Rep. Mark Green, R-Tenn., chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security, and Rep. Andrew Garbarino, R-N.Y., chairman of the Subcommittee on Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection, said the incident serves as a broad “warning about the national security risks associated with network dependency,” according to a letter Monday.

The outage caused disruptions across “key functions” of the global economy, including banking, aviation, health care, emergency services and media, the lawmakers said. Thousands of flights in the U.S. have been delayed and canceled, and many health systems across the country had to reschedule appointments and nonemergent procedures.

Shares of CrowdStrike closed down more than 13% on Monday.

“CrowdStrike is actively in contact with relevant Congressional Committees,” a CrowdStrike spokesperson told CNBC in a statement. “Briefings and other engagement timelines may be disclosed at Members’ discretion.”

Microsoft declined to comment.

“Recognizing that Americans will undoubtedly feel the lasting, real-world consequences of this incident, they deserve to know in detail how this incident happened and the mitigation steps CrowdStrike is taking,” Green and Garbarino wrote.

Kurtz said Friday that the outage was not a cyberattack or security incident, and CrowdStrike deployed a fix that day. Even so, the lawmakers said the country needs to learn from Friday’s disruption and make sure it “does not happen again.”

Green and Garbarino asked CrowdStrike to set up a hearing with the Subcommittee on Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection by Wednesday at the latest.