After a single CrowdStrike replace precipitated the largest IT outage in history final month, rippling throughout 8.5 million Windows devices, affecting 1.4 million travelers, and inflicting banking outages at JPMorgan and Bank of America, the very last thing you’d count on is for the corporate to begin receiving awards.
However on Saturday, CrowdStrike accepted a big, two-tiered trophy on the annual Pwnie Awards in Las Vegas — for the “most epic fail.” Much more shocking? CrowdStrike President Michael Sentonas accepted the award in individual.
“Positively not the award to be happy with receiving,” he stated when accepting the award. “I feel the crew was shocked once I stated straightaway that I’d come and get it as a result of we received this horribly unsuitable.”
Sentonas stated he needed to carry the trophy again to CrowdStrike headquarters in Austin, Texas, so each CrowdStrike worker would see it and be taught from the incident.
“From that perspective, I’ll say thanks and take the trophy,” Setonas stated. “We’ll put it in the precise place and ensure all people sees it.”
CrowdStrike accepting the @PwnieAwards for “most epic fail” at @defcon. Class act. pic.twitter.com/e7IgYosHAE
— Dominic White ? (@singe) August 10, 2024
Although Sentonas accepted the award graciously, CrowdStrike’s July 19 incident was greater than a studying expertise.
The outage was brought on by a bug in a software program replace, which precipitated the blue screen of death on Microsoft Home windows units. The replace delayed over 10,000 flights, resulted in canceled scheduled surgical procedures, disrupted 911 services, and impacted different operations throughout the globe.
It additionally might have value Fortune 500 corporations round $5.4 billion in damages. Delta wrote in a U.S. Securities and Trade Fee submitting final week that the outage affected 1.3 million of its customers, at some point after a few of these clients sued Delta in a class action lawsuit over how the airline dealt with canceled flights.
CrowdStrike was additionally sued by air travelers final week in a category motion. CrowdStrike’s shareholders moreover sued the company earlier this month after the corporate’s share value dropped 32% within the 12 days after the outage.