Summary
- Global chaos ensued after the CrowdStrike update bug; flights grounded, systems offline.
- CrowdStrike apologizes with $10 Uber Eats gift card, but some codes are invalid.
- Shawn Henry laments the incident in heartfelt LinkedIn post, facing tough scrutiny.
The recent CrowdStrike update bug caused widespread chaos across the entire globe. Sensitive and important systems were knocked offline due to a faulty patch, which caused BSODs to appear in advertising spaces and grounding flights. Fortunately, CrowdStrike has fully taken the blame for this fault. It aims to prove how sorry it is by offering its partners a $10 gift card for Uber Eats, which will surely tide over all the companies that lost millions of dollars during the outage.
The Windows 11 2024 Update is now available — here's what's new and why it's not Windows 12
The Windows 11 2024 Update will bring a ton of changes to the operating system, including better support for Arm devices.
CrowdStrike "expresses its gratitude" with a free cup of coffee
As spotted by TechCrunch, CrowdStrike has begun emailing partners expressing its apologies about the recent outage. In the email, CrowdStrike "recognized the additional work" that the crashes caused, and stated that an incident review "will be published soon." The real kicker was this quote at the bottom of the email:
"To express our gratitude, your next cup of coffee or late-night snack is on us! Access your Uber Eats Credit by using [this] code."
One person from the UK redeemed the gift code and found that it added £7.75 credit to their Uber Eats account - that's about $10. To add insult to injury, some people went to redeem the code, only for Uber Eats to declare that the code "has been canceled by the issuing party and is no longer valid." After all the stress that CrowdStrike caused, another error code is likely the last thing that companies want to see.
TechCrunch also spotted a post on Linked In by Shawn Henry, the CSO of CrowdStrike. In the post, he lamented what happened, stating that he was previously proud of his work at CrowdStrike:
"On Friday, though, we failed. 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."
It's hard to say if companies will continue using CrowdStrike after this incident, given how none have come out publically about their plans surrounding the security app. At the very least, if they do decide to make the swap, they can get the IT guy a free coffee while he sorts things out - that is, if the code even works.