What is Crowdstrike? NBC New York [Video]

The massive IT outage affecting computers systems worldwide has been linked to a software update on Microsoft Windows operating systems issued by Crowdstrike, a cybersecurity firm.

The outage grounded flights, knocked banks offline and media outlets off air in a massive disruption that affected companies and services around the world and highlighted dependence on software from a handful of providers.

Founded in 2011, the Texas-based Crowdstrike is a cloud-based cybersecurity platform used by a major share of the global tech market. More than half of Fortune 500 companies use their software known as Falcon to keep their systems safe from malware and cyberattacks, according to Crowdstrike.

Falcon provides what’s known as “endpoint detection response” capabilities. That means if Falcon detects a threat, it has the ability to stop itself instead of just alerting a company.

“Falcon Prevent can stop execution of malicious code, block zero-day exploits, kill processes and contain command and control callbacks,” the company says in its FAQs.

In order …