LONDO - American cybersecurity company CrowdStrike became a household name for all the wrong reasons on Friday (July 19), after a botched software update caused havoc around the world.

The company's stock fell more than 11 per cent on Friday after an outage disrupted operations across multiple industries - shutting down public services, halting flights and forcing some broadcasters off the air.

CrowdStrike - which previously reached a market cap of about $83 billion (S$111 billion) - is among the most popular cybersecurity providers in the world, with close to 30,000 subscribers globally. The firm has been a software darling for investors, due to its growth and high margin. Its stock had doubled in the past year before Friday's slump.

But the outage could force customers and investors alike to rethink their dependence on the company, opening the door to potential rivals like Palo Alto Networks which saw its stock rise 1.7 per cent on Friday, and SentinelOne which jumped as much as 3.6 per cent.

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