(NewsNation) — A technology outage that disrupted computer systems worldwide Friday has thrust a fast-growing cybersecurity firm and its expansive reach into the spotlight.

CrowdStrike said the outage appeared to have been caused by a “defect” in a software update it deployed to Microsoft Windows customers. CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz confirmed the outage was not a security incident or cyberattack.

Microsoft announced the underlying cause of the outage had been fixed, but the impact of the outage will continue to affect Microsoft 365 apps and services for the time being. The company said it is working to provide relief and will continue to keep the public updated.

What is CrowdStrike, and how could it be responsible for a global tech system failure?

CrowdStrike, a global cybersecurity firm, tracks nation-state hacking to protect and enable tech companies and governments around the world. The company works to secure cloud data and processes from security breaches and hackers.

The company launched in 2012 with a $26 million funding round led by private equity company Warburg Pincus. CrowdStrike quickly grew, launching threat intelligence and hunting modules.

Last month, CrowdStrike reported that its revenue rose 33% in the last quarter from the same quarter a year earlier — logging a net profit of $42.8 million, up from $491,000 in the first quarter of last year. On Friday, after news of the outages, the stock tumbled, the Associated Press reported.

In just over a decade, CrowdStrike has been named a global leader in “cloud-delivered endpoint and workload protection,” protecting large tech companies such as Microsoft, Mac and Linux hosts. It’s also been named an industry lead for state and local governments.

The company has become one of the largest players in protecting cloud services, including Amazon’s AWS, according to Forbes.