US banks are worried about the possibility of a massive Russian cyberattack, says cybersecurity CEO

• CrowdStrike's CEO said that bank executives in the US are worried about a potential Russian cyberattack.
• Kurtz told CNBC's Jim Cramer that much of the US infrastructure could have better cybersecurity.

CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz said that bank executives in the United States are concerned about the possibility of devastating Russian cyberattacks.

The widely-condemned invasion of Ukraine has resulted in the US ordering sanctions against Russia. But Russia has indicated that it plans to retaliate, with the country's Foreign Affairs Ministry responding that its country would take steps "finely tuned and painful to the American side."

And cybersecurity experts like Kurtz have predicted that at least part of Russia's response will involve cyberattacks against American businesses and government entities. Authorities have suspected that Russian-backed outfits have committed a number of major cyberattacks in recent years, including the 2020 SolarWinds attack that featured hackers planting malware on the company's software. CrowdStrike ended up working with SolarWinds to deal with the attack, and in 2021, Kurtz told Insider that "really need to alter their game in the public and the private sector."

Kurtz, speaking with CNBC's Jim Cramer on "Mad Money" Thursday, now says that his company works with 14 of the biggest banks in the US. In his estimate, 85% of the US infrastructure "is owned by private companies." Much of that is not necessarily "up to the level we would like from a cybersecurity perspective," he said.

"I've talked to a lot of banks recently, a lot of senior executives, and they're concerned," Kurtz told Cramer. "They're very concerned about what might happen here, and they should be."

But Kurtz also singled out US banks for their cybersecurity prowess,

"Thankfully, they have the money to actually put in a mature cybersecurity technology," he said.