CrowdStrike sends gift cards to partners after global outage
CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity firm that recently caused a global disruption with a buggy update, has taken an unusual step to apologise to its partners. Following the incident that left millions of computers inoperable, the company is offering its partners a $10 Uber Eats gift card as an apology. However, even this attempt to make amends seems to have backfired, as many recipients report the gift cards are not functioning.
On Tuesday, a source informed TechCrunch that they received an email from CrowdStrike, acknowledging the additional workload caused by the July 19TH incident and offering a gift.
Also read: Apple 1, Microsoft 0: Why Mac devices weren’t affected during CrowdStrike-Windows outage
The email, which was sent from a CrowdStrike address under the name of Daniel Bernard, the company’s chief business officer, read: “To express our gratitude, your next cup of coffee or late night snack is on us!” In the UK, the voucher was worth £7.75, approximately $10 at the current exchange rate.
Unfortunately, some recipients found that the gift card was not redeemable. When attempting to use the card, they encountered an error message stating that the voucher had been cancelled. TechCrunch verified this issue, finding that the Uber Eats page provided an error message that said the gift card “has been cancelled by the issuing party and is no longer valid.”
Also read: CrowdStrike warns about these phishing and fraud attempts following global outage
CrowdStrike spokesperson Kevin Benacci confirmed the distribution of gift cards, explaining that Uber flagged the cards as fraud due to high usage rates. “We did send these to our teammates and partners who have been helping customers through this situation,” Benacci said in an email.
The initial problem arose on Friday when CrowdStrike released a faulty update, rendering approximately 8.5 million Windows devices unusable, according to Microsoft. The update caused the affected computers to display the infamous “blue screen of death” (BSOD), disrupting operations globally. The outage led to delays at airports in Amsterdam, Berlin, Dubai, London, and across the United States, halted surgeries at several hospitals, and paralysed countless businesses.
Since the incident, CrowdStrike has been actively publishing updates on its efforts to find out what led to the mass outage. Apologies from CEO George Kurtz and Chief Security Officer Shawn Henry were also published on the company’s website and LinkedIn, respectively.
“All of CrowdStrike understands the gravity and impact of the situation,” Kurtz stated. “Nothing is more important to me than the trust and confidence that our customers and partners have put into CrowdStrike. As we resolve this incident, you have my commitment to provide full transparency on how this occurred and steps we’re taking to prevent anything like this from happening again.”
Henry echoed these sentiments, expressing deep regret: “We failed you, and for that, I’m deeply sorry.” “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, and it was a gut punch.”
Despite these apologies and efforts to make amends, the non-functioning gift cards have added another layer of frustration for those affected by the outage.
