CrowdStrike, the renowned cybersecurity firm, recently faced a significant backlash after a botched update on July 19th led to the crashing of millions of computers globally. In an attempt to apologize for the incident, CrowdStrike offered its partners a $10 Uber Eats gift card. The gift card was meant to acknowledge the “additional work” caused by the update mishap, according to emails received by partners and screenshots shared with TechCrunch.
The apology email, sent by Daniel Bernard, CrowdStrike’s chief business officer, expressed gratitude and offered a small token of appreciation, stating, “To express our gratitude, your next cup of coffee or late night snack is on us!” In the UK, the voucher was valued at £7.75, approximately $10. However, many recipients faced further frustration when they discovered that the gift cards had been canceled, with Uber Eats citing high usage rates as the reason for flagging the vouchers as fraud.
CrowdStrike spokesperson Kevin Benacci confirmed the issuance of the gift cards, explaining that Uber’s fraud detection system canceled them due to the volume of redemptions. This incident compounded the challenges CrowdStrike faced after their faulty update left around 8.5 million Windows devices unusable, causing widespread disruption. The update led to the notorious “blue screen of death” (BSOD) on affected computers, significantly impacting operations at airports in Amsterdam, Berlin, Dubai, London, and across the United States. Hospitals halted surgeries, and countless businesses experienced paralyzing disruptions.
In response to the crisis, CrowdStrike has been providing regular updates on its investigation into the cause of the outage. They identified a bug in the validation process of the update, which allowed problematic code to be released. Apologies were issued by CEO George Kurtz and Chief Security Officer Shawn Henry, acknowledging the gravity of the situation and pledging full transparency and preventive measures.
Kurtz emphasized the importance of trust and confidence from customers and partners, while Henry expressed his deep regret, stating, “The past two days have been the most challenging 48 hours for me over 12+ years. The confidence we built in drips over the years was lost in buckets within hours.”
