South Bay businesses, gov't agencies impacted by global software glitch

SUNNYVALE, Calif. - The global tech outage wreaked havoc at the end of the work week. From air travel to stock prices on Wall Street to the mood on Main Street, all indicators were pointed in a downward direction.

CrowdStrike’s stock has lost some of its value, down a little over 11% at the closing bell on Wall Street. But that close doesn’t end the mad scramble happening here and around the globe, to assess the damage.

"First thing this morning I got a call from a CFO of a major Fortune 500 company who said ‘I’ve been up since midnight because I got a phone call. We thought the world was ending,’" said Leah Toeniskoetter the CEO of the San Jose Chamber of Commerce.

It wasn’t an end, but more like the world came to a standstill in a business sense. CrowdStrike, formerly based in the South Bay, unknowingly sent a software glitch to Microsoft users, which spread around the world.

South Bay businesses such as grocery stores and tech companies were hampered, or forced to halt operations.

"People can’t place orders because the software requires Microsoft to be operating properly. And it’s not, so orders aren’t going to get placed. Some of those are never going to get placed," said Dr. Robert Chapman Wood, a professor of strategic management at San Jose State University. "I’m sure there are lots of companies in Silicon Valley where people are not working today because of this problem."

Santa Clara County Superior Court operations were slowed, but officials said their IT team worked to allow cases to continue without a hitch.

Businesses with multiple offices in other locations were better able to weather the global storm, according to some experts. Others weren’t so lucky.

"I absolutely was receiving some phone calls from clients of ours. We’ve got clients all over the country, Fortune 500 clients, who were affected," said Nicholas Adams, president & CEO of Ninico Communications, a Bay Area PR firm.

CrowdStrike management formulated a fix, but the damage to the company’s global image was done. Its shares sagged 38 points in heavy market trading.

Now, some experts question who’ll stay with one of the leaders in cybersecurity, and who will cut bait.

"It’s a wake-up call. If there aren’t redundant systems, if there aren’t alerts and security systems in place, we’re going to have a bigger problem if this was a major attack," said Toeniskoetter.

Jesse Gary is a reporter based in the station's South Bay bureau. Follow him on Instagram, @jessegontv and on Facebook, @JesseKTVU