CrowdStrike Sell-Off a Buying Opportunity After Outage

Security stock has fallen sharply in early trading despite credible response to global tech outage

Malik Ahmed Khan 19 July, 2024 | 3:09PM
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CrowdStrike

Key Morningstar Metrics for CrowdStrike Stock

Fair Value Estimate: $300.00
Morningstar Rating: 3 stars
Economic Moat: Narrow
• Morningstar Uncertainty Rating: High

Narrow-moat CrowdStrike (CRWD) said a faulty update was the reason behind the massive technology outage that affected millions of users in the early hours of July 19. Customers using CrowdStrike's security platform were locked out of their Windows devices.

While details are still emerging, CrowdStrike's initial response emphasised that this incident was not a security breach and that the faulty update has been rectified. We find some credence in this response, considering that within hours of the outage, companies with operations affected by CrowdStrike's update have been able to gradually resume their services.

CrowdStrike Stock Update

Investors appear to have been spooked by recent high-profile security incidents and sold CrowdStrike's shares, with the stock dropping more than 10%. We think this market reaction is overly punitive, especially considering that the update doesn't represent a breach of CrowdStrike's security apparatus. While the shares still trade in 3-star territory after the premarket drop, we think the current pullback represents a good buying opportunity for long-term investors looking for high-quality security/software exposure.

While we don't have a full postmortem on the faulty update that led to this morning's chaos, we suspect that CrowdStrike's central cloud, which pushes updates across its entire customer base simultaneously, played a key role. While this feature enables CrowdStrike to continuously update its customers' security apparatus, it also enabled a substandard update to be pushed onto the company's entire customer base, essentially halting operations at major airports and media networks, among others.

The information contained within is for educational and informational purposes ONLY. It is not intended nor should it be considered an invitation or inducement to buy or sell a security or securities noted within nor should it be viewed as a communication intended to persuade or incite you to buy or sell security or securities noted within. Any commentary provided is the opinion of the author and should not be considered a personalised recommendation. The information contained within should not be a person's sole basis for making an investment decision. Please contact your financial professional before making an investment decision.

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Securities Mentioned in Article

Security NamePriceChange (%)Morningstar
Rating
CrowdStrike Holdings Inc Class A306.13 USD-10.76Rating

About Author

Malik Ahmed Khan  is an equity analyst, technology, for Morningstar Research Services LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Morningstar, Inc.

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