- CrowdStrike criticized for $10 apology voucher
- Outage impacted airlines, banks, hospitals
- CEO Kurtz to testify before Congress
CrowdStrike is receiving further criticism after offering a $10 UberEats ticket to employees and businesses it works with to apologize for a global IT failure that caused mayhem across airlines, banks, and hospitals last week.
The cybersecurity company, whose software upgrade on Friday affected 8.5 million machines worldwide, acknowledged in an email to its partners that the incident had resulted in additional work.
To show our appreciation, your next cup of coffee or late-night snack is on us! CrowdStrike said, instructing users to enter a code to receive the $10 reimbursement.
Some, however, reacted with disdain. One Reddit user described it as an “absolute clown show,” while another stated, “I literally wanted to drive my car off a bridge this weekend, and they bought me coffee.” Nice.
One LinkedIn user, claiming to be a CrowdStrike partner, stated: The gesture of a cup of coffee or Uber Eats credit as an apology does not appear to compensate for the tens of thousands of lost person-hours and customer trust due to the July 19 event.
CrowdStrike acknowledged that it distributed the coupons to “teammates and partners” who assisted consumers in coping with the outage’s effects.
However, several users who claimed to have received a voucher rushed to social media to complain that it didn’t work.
CrowdStrike admitted that Uber identified it as fraudulent due to its high usage rates.
It comes amid rising concerns about the financial compensation CrowdStrike customers and anybody affected by the outage would be able to seek.
Following the widespread IT outage caused by a defective content update for Windows computers, the company has committed to strengthen its software testing.
Its error caused problems for banks, hospitals, and airlines, as millions of PCs exhibited “blue screens of death.”
In a detailed investigation of the event published on Wednesday, CrowdStrike stated that there was a “bug” in a system designed to ensure software upgrades work correctly.
According to Crowdstrike, the bug caused “problematic content data” in a file to go undetected.
The business stated that more excellent software testing and verification and increased developer scrutiny could prevent the incident from occurring again.
The incorrect update crashed 8.5 million Microsoft Windows machines worldwide, and Crowdstrike’s CEO, George Kurtz, has apologized for the consequences of the outage.
However, cybersecurity experts claimed that the examination showed “major mistakes” by the corporation.
“What’s clear from the post-mortem is they didn’t seem to have the right guardrails in place to prevent this type of incident or reduce the risk of it occurring,” said cyber-security consultant Daniel Card.
Cybersecurity analyst Kevin Beaumont shared his sentiments, stating that the major takeaway from CrowdStrike’s study is that the company does not “test in waves.
He added that they deployed to all clients at once in a so-called “rapid response update,” which was a massive mistake.
Such measures “have likely effectively prevented incidents on countless occasions before last week.”
Congress calls.
According to insurance provider Parametrix, the top 500 US corporations by revenue, excluding Microsoft, suffered financial damages totaling $5.4 billion (£4.1 billion) due to the outage.
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It claimed that these losses were insured by only $540 million (£418 million) to $1.08 billion (£840 million).
The US government has investigated Delta Airlines’ outage handling, as the company canceled hundreds more flights.
Delta CEO Ed Bastian told customers on Wednesday that the airline intends to recover fully by Thursday.
Crowdstrike is expected to face additional scrutiny, with Mr Kurtz asked to testify before Congress about the outage.
This episode must serve as a broader warning about the national security concerns connected with network dependency, the House Committee on Homeland Security stated in a letter to the business on Monday.
It granted CrowdStrike till Wednesday evening to schedule a hearing.
