Microsoft to host Cybersecurity Summit following Crowdstrike outage

Following a faulty update from CrowdStrike that caused a global IT outage last month, Microsoft will be holding a summit in September to discuss steps to improve cybersecurity systems. The conference marks the first big step by Microsoft to address the issues that affected nearly 8.5 million Windows devices on July 19, and disrupted operations across industries.

The event will be held on Sept. 10 at Microsoft's headquarters in Redmond, Washington.

"The CrowdStrike outage in July presents important lessons for us to apply as an ecosystem," Microsoft said.

"We look forward to bringing our perspective to the discussions with Microsoft and industry and government stakeholders on the need for a more resilient ecosystem," a CrowdStrike spokesperson said.

The outage has highlighted concerns that many organizations lack effective contingency plans for dealing with failures in critical IT systems or software. Analysts have pointed out that the incident reveals the dangers of relying on a single vendor for comprehensive security solutions.

Since the outage, CrowdStrike has seen its market value decrease by approximately $9 billion and has faced lawsuits from shareholders. These shareholders allege that the cybersecurity firm misled them by failing to disclose how insufficient software testing could lead to widespread disruptions.

Earlier this month, Delta Air Lines said it was pursuing legal claims against CrowdStrike and Microsoft, after the outage caused mass flight cancellations and cost the carrier at least $500 million.

CrowdStrike is scheduled to report its second-quarter financial results after the U.S. market closes on Aug. 28.