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George Kurtz

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George Kurtz
George Kurtz, co-founder and CEO of CrowdStrike
Kurtz, c. 2016
Born (1965-05-05) May 5, 1965 (age 59)
New Jersey, U.S.[1]
Alma materSeton Hall University (BS)
Occupation(s)President and CEO of CrowdStrike
SpouseAnnamaria Kurtz
Children2

George Kurtz (born May 5, 1965) is an American businessman. He is the CEO of the cybersecurity company CrowdStrike, which he co-founded with Dmitri Alperovitch.

In 2024, his company CrowdStrike crashed millions of Windows computers around the world, causing billions of dollars in economic losses in what has been called the largest outage in the history of information technology.[2]

Earlier, Kurtz co-wrote Hacking Exposed: Network Security Secrets & Solutions and founded Foundstone.[3] He was serving as chief technology officer of McAfee when that company released a patch that crashed many of its client's computers.[4][5] He is also an amateur racing driver.[6]

Early life and education

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Kurtz grew up in Parsippany–Troy Hills, New Jersey, and attended Parsippany High School.[7][1] He claims that he started programming video games on his Commodore when he was in fourth grade. He went on to build bulletin board systems in high school.[8]

Kurtz received a Bachelor of Science with a major in accounting from the private Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey.[9]

Career

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Price Waterhouse and Foundstone

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After college, Kurtz began his career at Price Waterhouse as a CPA. In 1993, Price Waterhouse made Kurtz one of its first employees in its new security group. In 1999, he co-wrote Hacking Exposed, a book about cybersecurity for network administrators, with Stuart McClure and Joel Scambray. The book sold more than 600,000 copies and was translated into more than 30 languages.[1][10] Later that year he started a cybersecurity company, Foundstone, one of the first dedicated security consulting companies. Foundstone focused on vulnerability management software and services and developed a well-recognized incident response practice, with much of the Fortune 100 among its customers.[11][12]

McAfee

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In August 2004, Foundstone was acquired for $86 million by McAfee, which appointed Kurtz to be senior vice president and general manager of risk management.[11][13]

In October 2009, McAfee promoted him to chief technology officer and executive vice president.[14] Six months later, McAfee accidentally disrupted its customers' operations around the world when it pushed out a software update that deleted critical Windows XP system files and caused affected systems to bluescreen and enter a boot loop. "I'm not sure any virus writer has ever developed a piece of malware that shut down as many machines as quickly as McAfee did today," Ed Bott wrote at ZDNet.[5]

In 2010, Kurtz participated in Operation Aurora, the investigation of a series of cyber attacks against Google and several other companies.[15]

In 2011, he led McAfee's research around the emerging Night Dragon and Shady RAT threats, alongside Dmitri Alperovitch, who was then McAfee's vice president of threat research.[16][17]

Over time, Kurtz became frustrated that existing security technology functioned slowly and was not, as he perceived it, evolving at the pace of new threats.[18] On a flight, he watched the passenger seated next to him wait 15 minutes for McAfee software to load on his laptop, an incident he later cited as part of his inspiration for founding CrowdStrike.[19][1] He resigned from McAfee in October 2011.[17]

CrowdStrike

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In November 2011, Kurtz joined private equity firm Warburg Pincus as an "entrepreneur-in-residence"[20][21] and began working on his next project, CrowdStrike. He, Gregg Marston (former chief financial officer at Foundstone), and Dmitri Alperovitch co-founded CrowdStrike in Irvine, California, formally announcing the company's launch in February 2012.[22][23] Kurtz pitched the idea for the company to Warburg Pincus and secured $25 million in funding.[8][24]

CrowdStrike shifted the focus from anti-malware and antivirus products (McAfee's approach to cybersecurity) to identifying the techniques used by hackers in order to spot threats.[25][26] The company also developed a "cloud-first" model in order to reduce the software load on customers' computers.[25] CrowdStrike, now headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, attracted public interest in June 2016 for its role in investigating the Democratic National Committee cyber attacks,[19] and in May 2017, the company exceeded a valuation of $1 billion.[27] In 2019, CrowdStrike's $612 million initial public offering on the Nasdaq brought the company to a $6.6 billion valuation under Kurtz's leadership.[28][29] In March 2020, when discussing company strategy at CrowdStrike, he said that "not one time have I regretted firing someone too fast."[30] In July 2020, an IDC report named CrowdStrike as the fastest-growing endpoint security software vendor.[31] He ranked on CRN's 2021 Top 100 Executives list.[32]

In 2023, Kurtz warned of cyber threats from China and criticized Microsoft’s response after Chinese hackers exploited a flaw in Microsoft's cloud email service to gain access to the email accounts of U.S. government employees.[33]

On July 19, 2024, CrowdStrike caused one of the largest information technology outages in history when it pushed out a software update that caused an estimated 8.5 million computers running Microsoft Windows to crash and left them unable to properly restart.[34] This disrupted industries and governmental operations around the world, causing economic losses estimated in the billions of dollars in what has been called the largest IT outage in history[35] and "historic in scale".[36] In a live interview on NBC's Today, CEO Kurtz apologized to the public. He said company leaders were "deeply sorry for the impact that we've caused to customers, to travelers, to anyone affected by this, including our companies".[37]

Personal life

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Kurtz is Jewish.[38] He collects exotic cars.

Racing career

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In 2016, Kurtz made his racing debut in the Pirelli World Challenge, driving an Aston Martin Vantage GT4 for TRG-AMR. He subsequently remained in the series for the following two years, winning the GTS Am class in 2017 whilst at the wheel of a McLaren 570S GT4.[39][40] 2019 saw the championship be rebranded to the GT World Challenge America, which Kurtz would contest alongside pro driver Colin Braun in the GT3 category.[41] The duo went on to finish fifth in the Pro-Am standings before reuniting in 2020.[42][43] At Virginia International Raceway, Kurtz scored his first overall win in GT3 machinery, which was followed by one further overall triumph at the final round as well as a total of eight Pro-Am podiums to leave the American as the runner-up of Pro-Am.[44][45]

Going into 2021, Kurtz paired his duties in the GTWC America with a first season in prototype cars, competing at the wheel of a Ligier JS P320 in the IMSA SportsCar Championship's LMP3 category.[46][47] In that series he competed solely in the endurance events, winning at Sebring and scoring a class podium at Watkins Glen.[48] Meanwhile, three missed weekends in the former series dropped Kurtz and Braun to sixth in the drivers' standings, with two class wins to their names. For 2022, Kurtz remained in both championships, scoring two podiums in IMSA, which included third place in class at the 24 Hours of Daytona, though his main success would come in GTWC America: ten wins from 16 races gave Kurtz the title in the SRO3 class.[49][50]

The following season, the American would step up to the LMP2 category to compete full-time in the IMSA SCC, driving for his own Crowdstrike team supported by Algarve Pro Racing alongside Ben Hanley, with silver-ranked Nolan Siegel supporting the pair at the endurance rounds.[51] Despite attaining two victories, including a win at the season-ending Petit Le Mans, Kurtz and Hanley would end the campaign second in the standings, being beaten narrowly by the pairing of Paul-Loup Chatin and Ben Keating.[52] In the Michelin Endurance Trophy, which took into account placings solely within the four endurance races, the Kurtz-Hanley combo came out on top.[53] In 2023, Kurtz also made his debut at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, where he, along with Colin Braun and James Allen won in the LMP2 Pro-Am subclass.[54][55] Finally, he returned to the GTWC America to defend his title, and although Kurtz only finished third in the SRO3 category he would be able to claim Pro-Am honours, having partnered Braun throughout the year.[56] During the 2023–24 winter, Kurtz and Braun took part in the Asian Le Mans Series, where they and young pro Malthe Jakobsen won two races on their way to the championship.[57]

Racing record

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Complete WeatherTech SportsCar Championship results

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(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; results in italics indicate fastest lap)

Year Team Class Make Engine 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Pos. Points
2021 CORE Autosport LMP3 Ligier JS P320 Nissan VK56DE 5.6L V8 DAY
5† 		SEB
1 		MDO WGL
2 		WGL ELK PET
7 		11th 968
2022 CORE Autosport LMP3 Ligier JS P320 Nissan VK56DE 5.6 L V8 DAY
3† 		SEB
5 		MDO WGL
2 		MOS
 ELK
 PET
5 		17th 921
2023 CrowdStrike Racing by APR LMP2 Oreca 07 Gibson GK428 V8 DAY
2† 		SEB
5 		MON
3 		WGL
1 		ELK
7 		IMS
3 		PET
1 		2nd 1958
2024 CrowdStrike Racing by APR LMP2 Oreca 07 Gibson GK428 V8 DAY
2 		SEB
9 		WGL
13 		MOS
7 		ELK IMS ATL
Source:[58]

† Points only counted towards the Michelin Endurance Cup, and not the overall LMP2 Championship. † Points only counted towards the Michelin Endurance Cup, and not the overall LMP3 Championship.

References

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  1. ^ a b c d Velloor, Ravi (September 10, 2017). "In Good Company: CrowdStrike's George Kurtz is in a race against hackers". The Straits Times. Archived from the original on March 28, 2018. Retrieved November 15, 2017.
  2. ^ Milmo, Dan; Kollewe, Julia; Quinn, Ben; Taylor, Josh; Ibrahim, Mimi (July 19, 2024). "'Largest IT outage in history' hits Microsoft Windows and causes global chaos". The Guardian. Archived from the original on July 25, 2024. Retrieved July 19, 2024.
  3. ^ "George Kurtz". www.carnegiecouncil.org. Archived from the original on July 8, 2024. Retrieved July 24, 2024.
  4. ^ "George Kurtz". CrowdStrike. Archived from the original on February 3, 2019. Retrieved November 15, 2017.
  5. ^ a b Ed Bott (April 21, 2010). "Defective McAfee update causes worldwide meltdown of XP PCs". ZDNet. Retrieved July 21, 2024.
  6. ^ Dagys, John (June 6, 2023). "Kurtz Approaching Le Mans Debut With "Open Mind" – Sportscar365". sportscar365.com. Archived from the original on July 25, 2024. Retrieved July 22, 2024.
  7. ^ Westhoven, William. "Parsippany native leads charge against cyber attacks" Archived July 25, 2024, at the Wayback Machine, Asbury Park Press, December 29, 2014. Accessed February 22, 2018. "A Parsippany native on the front lines of the global cyber wars says if you thought 2014 was wild, wait until 2015.... Kurtz, who spent much of his time in Parsippany fly fishing or playing for the Parsippany High School football team, started out as an accountant after graduating from Seton Hall University, after which he worked for firms such as Price Waterhouse."
  8. ^ a b Yakowicz, Will (September 2016). "When Wall Street and Washington Get Hacked, They Call This Guy". Inc. Archived from the original on July 22, 2019. Retrieved November 15, 2017.
  9. ^ "George Kurtz: CEO & Founder | CrowdStrike". crowdstrike.com. Archived from the original on February 3, 2019. Retrieved July 25, 2024.
  10. ^ "Influencers - George Kurtz". SC Media. August 22, 2017. Retrieved November 17, 2017.
  11. ^ a b Fisher, Dennis (August 16, 2004). "McAfee Buys Security Consulting Firm Foundstone". eWeek. Archived from the original on July 25, 2024. Retrieved November 15, 2017.
  12. ^ High, Peter (May 23, 2017). "Security Advice From The CEO Of The World's Newest Unicorn - CrowdStrike". Forbes. Archived from the original on May 23, 2017. Retrieved November 17, 2017.
  13. ^ McLaughlin, Kevin (October 18, 2011). "McAfee Looking For New CTO After Kurtz Steps Down". CRN. Archived from the original on May 18, 2022. Retrieved November 17, 2017.
  14. ^ "McAfee Names George Kurtz EVP and CTO". Channel Times. October 7, 2009. Retrieved November 15, 2017.[permanent dead link]
  15. ^ Jackson, William (September 1, 2010). "How Google attacks changed the security game". GCN. Retrieved December 14, 2017.[permanent dead link]
  16. ^ Raywood, Dan (February 10, 2011). "McAfee CTO warns of new combined threat named 'Night Dragon'". SC Media UK. Archived from the original on July 25, 2024. Retrieved December 14, 2017.
  17. ^ a b Finkle, Jim (October 18, 2011). "McAfee loses high-profile researcher and CTO". Reuters. Retrieved November 15, 2017.
  18. ^ Fox-Brewster, Thomas (July 6, 2016). "Duelling Unicorns: CrowdStrike Vs. Cylance In Brutal Battle To Knock Hackers Out". Forbes. Archived from the original on September 11, 2016. Retrieved November 17, 2017.
  19. ^ a b Marwan, Samar (July 11, 2017). "CrowdStrike Helped Trace The DNC Hack To Russia -- Now Business Is Booming". Forbes. Retrieved November 15, 2017.
  20. ^ "CrowdStrike IPO Seeks To Raise $100M, Reveals Strength Of Channel". CRN. Archived from the original on April 18, 2021. Retrieved March 30, 2021.
  21. ^ "Stealth startup CrowdStrike wants to obliterate security threats, raises $26M". geekwire.com. Archived from the original on February 5, 2021. Retrieved March 30, 2021.
  22. ^ "Ex-McAfee execs start security firm, CrowdStrike". Reuters. February 23, 2012. Retrieved November 15, 2017.
  23. ^ Rao, Leena (February 23, 2012). "Former McAfee CTO Debuts Stealthy Security Technology Startup CrowdStrike With $26M In Funding". TechCrunch. Retrieved November 15, 2017.
  24. ^ "Outmaneuvered at Their Own Game, Antivirus Makers Struggle to Adapt". CNBC. January 2, 2013. Archived from the original on July 25, 2024. Retrieved November 15, 2017.
  25. ^ a b Hackett, Robert (July 29, 2015). "Standing up at the gates of hell: CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz". Fortune. Archived from the original on May 29, 2016. Retrieved November 15, 2017.
  26. ^ Kerner, Sean Michael (June 21, 2013). "Former McAfee CTO Strikes Back with Crowdstrike". eSecurity Planet. Retrieved November 15, 2017.[permanent dead link]
  27. ^ Hackett, Robert (May 17, 2017). "Hack Investigator CrowdStrike Reaches $1 Billion Valuation". Fortune. Archived from the original on May 29, 2017. Retrieved November 17, 2017.
  28. ^ Novinson, Michael (December 31, 2019). "10 Hot Cybersecurity Companies To Watch In 2020 – CrowdStrike". CRN. Archived from the original on April 19, 2021. Retrieved February 8, 2021.
  29. ^ Schubarth, Cromwell (June 12, 2019). "Why CrowdStrike's CEO isn't surprised his company equaled Symantec in value in its Wall Street debut". Silicon Valley Business Journal. Archived from the original on September 20, 2021. Retrieved February 8, 2021.
  30. ^ "CrowdStrike CEO Says he Regrets Not Firing People Quicker - dot.LA". dot.la. Archived from the original on July 20, 2024. Retrieved July 19, 2024.
  31. ^ Knowles, Catherine (July 6, 2020). "CrowdStrike recognised as leading endpoint security vendor on global scale". SecurityBrief EU. Archived from the original on March 4, 2021. Retrieved March 5, 2021.
  32. ^ "Strike First, Strike Hard: How George Kurtz Has Built CrowdStrike Into A Cybersecurity Powerhouse" Archived July 8, 2024, at the Wayback Machine, CRN, Michael Novinson (August 9, 2021)
  33. ^ "CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz on China, Microsoft and the SEC". CNBC. December 14, 2023. Archived from the original on July 22, 2024. Retrieved July 19, 2024.
  34. ^ Weston, David. "Helping our customers through the CrowdStrike outage". Microsoft. Archived from the original on July 20, 2024. Retrieved July 20, 2024.
  35. ^ Milmo, Dan; Kollewe, Julia; Quinn, Ben; Taylor, Josh; Ibrahim, Mimi (July 19, 2024). "'Largest IT outage in history' hits Microsoft Windows and causes global chaos". The Guardian. Archived from the original on July 25, 2024. Retrieved July 19, 2024.
  36. ^ Sorkin, Andrew Ross; Mattu, Ravi; Warner, Bernhard; Kessler, Sarah; Merced, Michael J. de la; Hirsch, Lauren; Livni, Ephrat; Gaffney, Austyn (July 19, 2024). "Counting the Costs of a Global IT Outage". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on July 19, 2024. Retrieved July 20, 2024.
  37. ^ "CrowdStrike CEO: 'We know what the issue is' and are resolving it". TODAY.com. Retrieved July 19, 2024.
  38. ^ "CrowdStrike to buy Israeli cybersecurity cos for $2b". Globes. July 26, 2022. Archived from the original on July 23, 2024. Retrieved July 22, 2024.
  39. ^ "GMG Closes Out 2017 Season with Two Additional Pirelli World Challenge Championships". GMG Racing. September 19, 2017. Retrieved July 25, 2024.
  40. ^ Malsher, David (August 13, 2017). "Utah PWC: James delivers fourth GTS win for Panoz". Motorsport.com. Archived from the original on June 25, 2018. Retrieved November 15, 2017.
  41. ^ Myrehn, Ryan (February 1, 2019). "CrowdStrike to Make GT3 Debut, Continue GT4 Program". sportscar365. John Dagys Media. Retrieved March 1, 2019.
  42. ^ "Pirelli Paddock Pass: George Kurtz – Sportscar365". Sportscar365. July 22, 2020. Archived from the original on February 28, 2021. Retrieved February 8, 2021.
  43. ^ "CrowdStrike Racing Expands Motorsports Program for 2020". gt-world-challenge-america.com. SRO Motorsports Group. February 11, 2020. Retrieved July 9, 2020.
  44. ^ "George Kurtz: Leader On And Off The Track". Speed Sport. July 20, 2017. Archived from the original on June 25, 2018. Retrieved November 15, 2017.
  45. ^ "Braun/Kurtz winners at IMS, Fuentes takes GTWC title". RACER. October 5, 2020. Retrieved July 25, 2024.
  46. ^ "DXDT Racing Expands Lineups for 2021 SRO America Effort". gt-world-challenge-america.com. SRO Motorsports Group. February 3, 2021. Retrieved February 3, 2021.
  47. ^ "Kurtz, McMurry Join CORE For 2021 LMP3 Endurance Races". CORE Autosport. Archived from the original on December 8, 2020. Retrieved December 8, 2020.
  48. ^ "JDC-Miller Cadillac triumphs at Sebring, Porsche sweeps GT". RACER. March 21, 2021. Retrieved July 25, 2024.
  49. ^ Goodwin, Graham (December 4, 2021). "CrowdStrike Racing Switch To Riley Motorsports For 2022 SRO America Campaign". dailysportscar.com. Retrieved December 4, 2021.
  50. ^ "Kurtz takes 10th overall win, Chouest claims GT4 title with sweep at Indianapolis". RACER. October 9, 2022. Retrieved July 25, 2024.
  51. ^ "CrowdStrike Racing Embarks on LMP2 Program for 2023 IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup". CrowdStrike Racing. Retrieved December 13, 2022.
  52. ^ "Keating, Kurtz, Robinson Reflect On 2023 Successes & What's To Come". www.dailysportscar.com. Retrieved April 26, 2024.
  53. ^ cox, sam (October 15, 2023). "CrowdStrike Racing by APR wins Petit Le Mans, Michelin Endurance Cup and Le Mans entry for Kurtz". Algarve Pro Racing. Retrieved July 25, 2024.
  54. ^ Euwema, Davey (June 11, 2023). "Inter Europol Takes Breakthrough LMP2 Victory at Le Mans". SportsCar365. Archived from the original on June 24, 2023. Retrieved June 24, 2023.
  55. ^ O'Connell, RJ (June 12, 2023). "Le Mans Centenary, By The Numbers". DailySportsCar. Archived from the original on June 24, 2023. Retrieved June 24, 2023.
  56. ^ "CHAMPIONS: George Kurtz, Colin Braun and CrowdStrike by Riley Capture Fanatec GT World Challenge America Pro-Am Driver and Team Titles". Fanatec GT World Challenge America Powered by AWS. October 11, 2023. Retrieved July 25, 2024.
  57. ^ "Kurtz, Braun lead Crowdstrike to AsLMS title and Le Mans invite". RACER. February 11, 2024. Retrieved July 25, 2024.
  58. ^ "George Kurtz Results". motorsportstats.com. Archived from the original on July 25, 2024. Retrieved January 10, 2024.
[edit]
Sporting positions
Preceded by Michelin Endurance Cup
LMP2 Champion
2023
With: Ben Hanley 		Succeeded by
Incumbent
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