CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz: Microsoft recall shows security promises are 'purely lip service'
In an interview with CRN, CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz says the now-delayed Recall offering is just the latest case where ‘Microsoft has put profits and features over security’
As sensational as the recent saga over Microsoft's Recall feature may be, to anyone who has been following Microsoft's series of security failures in recent years, it's also just not a shocker, CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz said in an interview with CRN.
At this point, "nothing surprises me with Microsoft," Kurtz said.
Recall - which has now been delayed by Microsoft over security concerns - was touted by the tech giant for its ability to take continuous screenshots of a user's desktop and then store the images. Security experts noted that for any hacker, this would be a highly sought-after prize to pursue.
Notably, the unveiling of the Recall feature came less than three weeks after Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella issued a memo urging staff to prioritise security over new feature releases.
Speaking with CRN, Kurtz said he believes that "Microsoft's stance on security - and the fact that they want to make some changes - is purely lip service, to be crystal clear. And I think Recall is a shining example of the lack of attention paid to security."
"They got called out on it - when you're storing such sensitive information in [a] cleartext SQL database on the system, that is just ripe for abuse," he said.
"Time and time again, Microsoft has put profits and features over security."
The CrowdStrike co-founder and CEO also weighed in on the scathing report on Microsoft's security culture and practices, issued in April by the U.S. Homeland Security-appointed Cyber Safety Review Board (CSRB). The report probed the Microsoft cloud email breach that impacted multiple federal agencies in 2023.
CrowdStrike has seen an acceleration in customers switching over from Microsoft's security offerings in the wake of the CSRB report, Kurtz said. "I think it hit a bit of a tipping point, particularly after that report came out."
Beating expectations
Meanwhile, for the first quarter of CrowdStrike's fiscal 2025, ended April 30, the company easily surpassed analyst expectations and raised its revenue guidance for the fiscal year. A few days later, Austin, Texas-based CrowdStrike was added to the S&P 500 index, becoming one of the few pure-play cybersecurity vendors to gain a spot on the benchmark index.
The company's growth is coming in part through its expansion into major segments such as cloud security and SIEM (security information and event management), providing more opportunities for consolidation on CrowdStrike's single-architecture Falcon platform, Kurtz said. The growth streak is also coming through working hand-in-hand with a greater number of channel partners, including MSSPs, he said.
"We've really focused on the partner-first selling motion," Kurtz said. "The overall message is, we're embracing partners and we're focused on them making money - and not [on] giving a bunch of products away."
What follows is an edited portion of CRN's interview with Kurtz.
During the quarterly earnings call, you mentioned winning deals over Microsoft - do you see that accelerating? Do you have any sense on whether this is happening more now than in the past?
In my opinion, it has accelerated. And it's accelerated because, as I talked about, there's really a crisis of trust with many of the Microsoft customers. [With] the Cyber Safety Review Board paper that came out, that was really I think a turning point for many customers to say, "OK, we have a real risk." [There's] an audit risk, a business resiliency [risk from] basically having a monoculture - which would be using your application, your operating system and your security provider, all from the same group. From that perspective, we've had many customers state that they can't trust what comes out of the Microsoft cloud. They don't have visibility into it. You probably have seen over the years - it's just difficult to get logging and data out of what's happening in Azure. So that has been something that's been growing. But I think it hit a bit of a tipping point, particularly after that [CSRB] report came out.
The second thing that we did that we announced Falcon for Defender at RSA [Conference in May]. That was very well-received because there are a lot of customers that are saddled with a [Microsoft 365] E5 license. Maybe it was made because of a procurement decision, but they know they're under-protected. They know someone like Microsoft can't match the technology, and can't even match things like Overwatch, which is an incredible service for customers. So it gives them a very cost-effective way to be able to backstop the Microsoft technology.
Keep reading to find out about Kurtz's thoughts on Microsoft Recall, the Snowflake attacks and the cyber vendors' overall attitude towards working with partners...
Highlights