August 21, 2024 CrowdStrike’s president, Michael Sentonas, has strongly criticized competitors for taking advantage of the company’s recent IT outage to push their own cybersecurity products. He described their behavior as “shady” and counterproductive, emphasizing that no vendor can guarantee their software won’t encounter similar issues.

Some competitors are indeed stressing that CrowdStrike’s practice of interacting with the kernel, the core of the Windows software is the wrong approach. While writing to the kernel does have its dangers, as any wrong or unexpected data can cause the system to crash Crowdstrike maintains that this is the best way to protect the operating system from attackers. While its probably fair game for a competitor to make the case that another architectural approach is superior, some competitors are reported to be calling Crowdstrike “irresponsible” for its approach.

Despite the fallout, which has included a significant drop in CrowdStrike’s market value and potential legal threats from affected clients like Delta Air Lines, Sentonas remains confident that the company will emerge stronger and more resilient from the experience. He also highlighted the importance of trust within the industry and dismissed concerns about long-term damage to CrowdStrike’s market dominance, suggesting that the company will ultimately be “the most battle-tested security product in the industry.”