Important Takeaways:

• What’s been described as the largest IT outage in history will cost Fortune 500 companies alone more than $5 billion in direct losses, according to one insurer’s analysis of the incident published Wednesday.
• The new figures put into stark relief how a single automated software update brought much of the global economy to a sudden halt — revealing the world’s overwhelming dependence on a key cybersecurity company — and what it will take to recover.
• The health care and banking sectors were the hardest hit by CrowdStrike’s mishap, with estimated losses of $1.94 billion and $1.15 billion, respectively, said Parametrix, the cloud monitoring and insurance firm behind Wednesday’s analysis.
• Fortune 500 airlines such as American and United were the next most affected, losing a collective $860 million
• All told, the outage may have cost Fortune 500 companies as much as $5.4 billion in revenues and gross profit, Parametrix said, not counting any secondary losses that may be attributed to lost productivity or reputational damage.

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