CrowdStrike, Antitrust, and the Digital Monoculture

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Last month’s unprecedented global IT failure should be a wakeup call. Decades of antitrust inaction have made many industries dangerously reliant on the same tools, making such crises inevitable. We must demand regulators break up the digital monocultures that are creating a less competitive, less safe, and less free digital world.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) solicited public comments last year on the state of the cloud computing market. EFF made it clear that the consolidation of service providers has created new dangers for everyone and urged the commission to encourage interoperability so customers could more easily switch and mix cloud services. Microsoft cautioned against intervention, touting the benefits of centralized cloud services for IT security.

A year later, a key cloud-based cybersecurity firm released a bug unique to Microsoft systems. Vital IT systems were disrupted for millions worldwide. 

This fragility goes beyond issues at a specific firm, it results from power being overly concentrated around a few major companies.

What Happened

The widespread and disruptive tech outage last month happened thanks to an overreliance on one particular tool, CrowdStrike’s Falcon sensor software. While not a monopoly, this tool is the most popular in end-point protection platforms.

This niche service often used by companies is best understood as an antivirus tool for devices, controlled by a cloud platform. “End-point” computers run the agent with very deep system permissions to scan for security issues, and the company CrowdStri

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