A car escorted by eight police motorcyclists arrived outside the company’s headquarters carrying damaged, burned and mangled storage devices. The Americans could only hope that the world-leading Hungarian firm Kürt would be able to recover the data damaged in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The company, founded by Sándor Kürti, went on to perform an astonishing feat.
Bush was stunned by the company’s expertise
“Tell me – what makes you so good at what you do?” President Bush asked Sándor Kürti, the founder and chairman of the world-leading Hungarian data-recovery firm Kürt, during an official visit to Budapest.
The company had achieved what seemed impossible: it recovered invaluable data from storage devices that had plunged to the ground with the Twin Towers, and had been badly damaged and burned in the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks.
Images of the 9/11 attack on New York’s symbolic World Trade Centre shocked the world. But in Budapest, someone immediately recognised that the aftermath might require specialist technical assistance. Dea Csuba, a Kürt employee, suggested that the United States might need the expertise of the Hungarian data-recovery company.
The firm soon contacted the Hungarian embassy in Washington and offered to restore data from computer storage devices recovered from the ruins of the Twin Towers. What is more, it asked for no payment.
The United States accepted the offer within a few days, while the FBI imposed strict confidentiality requirements on the company.
Damaged drives were sent to Budapest
The Hungarian experts did not even need to travel to America. The hard drives recovered from the rubble were transported to Hungary, where the extraordinarily difficult recovery operation began.
The result surprised even the Americans. According to Sándor Kürti’s recollection, the company managed to recover around 96 per cent of the data believed to be lost in the 9/11 attacks. Only information stored on devices physically destroyed by the intense heat generated when the aircraft struck the towers was lost for good.
Although the company received not a single dollar directly for its assistance, the operation proved to be a turning point commercially. Kürt became known around the world and grew into one of the leading names in data recovery and information security.
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Thanks from the governor and the president
The story also had a diplomatic sequel. First, George Pataki, then governor of New York, personally thanked Sándor Kürti. Later, when George W. Bush visited Budapest, the American president also wanted to meet him.
Bush approached Mr Kürti during a parliamentary dinner. Mr Kürti recalled that the president was delighted finally to meet him in person.
He remembers Bush’s words verbatim: “Alex, I’m so glad to finally meet you.” The president then asked what made the Hungarian company so good at what it did.
As Mr Kürti spoke about the firm’s work, Bush held his hand in a lengthy handshake, according to Index.
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