Syed Imran Haider 
In Monday’s trading session, there was a 13% drop in CrowdStrike shares. The cybersecurity software firm continued to assist clients across various industries in recovering from the outage.
Last week, the outage had resulted in millions of Microsoft Windows devices going offline, disrupting operations all over the globe.
The Issue
The company had updated its Falcon vulnerability-protection software early on Friday. It turned out to be defective, causing computer servers in data centers, PCs and display screens to crash.
This resulted in cancellation of medical appointments and a lot of flights were grounded. Almost 8.5 million Windows devices had been involved.
According to Microsoft, this was less than 1% of its global devices. IT staffers had been working overtime to fix computers.
On the other hand, hackers tried to take advantage of the confusion, as they set up malicious websites disguised as software updates.
George Kurtz, the chief executive of CrowdStrike, had also addressed the situation. On Friday, there had been an 11% decline in the company’s shares.
Over the weekend, people took to social media to share photos of Windows devices that displayed the ‘blue screen of death’.
On Sunday, CrowdStrike said that it was testing a method for fixing the affected devices quickly.
The Impact
On the same day, Guggenheim Securities decided to downgrade their rating on the company’s shares, as it shifted to buy from neutral.
According to analysts, CrowdStrike’s stock was still high as compared to other software firms. The company may need some time to be able to restore its image.
Analysts also added that signings would also feel the impact due to the incident. Signings can highlight the potential for revenue generation of the company.
This is because they indicate the value of the contract from existing as well as new customers. The analysts said that they respected CrowdStrike’s leadership team.
They added that they believed the company would be able to make a recovery and would come out stronger.
The Future
Furthermore, they also added that CrowdStrike would be able to ride it out, if investors continue to have a multi-year horizon.
Nonetheless, they said that they could not tell investors to buy the stock right now. As for Goldman Sachs, it also stuck by the buy rating on the shares in its notes on early Monday.
However, analysts of the investment bank said that they believed it would take the company longer to close its deals between the outage and the end of its fiscal second quarter, which is on July 31st.
They said that they expected to see minimal shifts in the shares after the outage. But, they also asserted that this would also depend on what new details come to light.
They referred to the McAfee outage that had occurred back in 2010. There had been a negative impact on the company’s revenue due to the incident.
It is likely that CrowdStrike may experience the same and this could have long-term consequences for the company.
