CrowdStrike apologizes with $10 gift cards after global IT outage
Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike has extended an apology to its partners for a botched update that crashed millions of computers worldwide last week. The company is offering a $10 Uber Eats gift card as a token of their regret. An email acknowledging "the additional work that the July 19 incident has caused" was sent out by Daniel Bernard, CrowdStrike's chief business officer. The email further read "To express our gratitude, your next cup of coffee or late-night snack is on us!"
Faulty update paralyzes millions of Windows devices
The faulty update released by CrowdStrike on July 19 rendered approximately 8.5 million Windows devices unusable, causing users to struggle with the blue screen of death (BSOD) issue. The incident caused significant delays at airports in Dubai, London, India, and the United States. Several hospitals had to halt surgeries and numerous businesses worldwide were paralyzed due to this mishap.
CrowdStrike executives publicly apologize for the incident
CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz and Chief Security Officer Shawn Henry have publicly apologized for the incident. Kurtz assured customers and partners of full transparency in resolving the incident and preventing similar occurrences in the future. On LinkedIn, Henry expressed deep regret over the situation, stating that "we failed you, and for that I'm deeply sorry."
Uber Eats gift card redemption issue and political scrutiny
Some partners have encountered an error message stating that the Uber Eats gift card voucher had been canceled when they attempted to redeem it. CrowdStrike spokesperson Kevin Benacci confirmed that Uber flagged it as fraud due to high usage rates. In addition to dealing with the fallout from the outage, CrowdStrike is also facing political scrutiny, with CEO George Kurtz called to testify before the House Homeland Security Committee.
CrowdStrike attributes outage to bug in update
CrowdStrike attributed the global system outage to a bug in an update containing "problematic data." The company has been regularly publishing updates on its efforts to determine the cause of the mass outage. Despite facing ongoing challenges, CrowdStrike maintains that this was not a security or cyber incident, but an issue with a Falcon content update for Windows Hosts.
