CrowdStrike President Accepts ‘Most Epic Fail’ Award Onstage

After a single CrowdStrike replace induced 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 start out 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 stunning? CrowdStrike President Michael Sentonas accepted the award in particular person.

“Undoubtedly not the award to be pleased with receiving,” he mentioned when accepting the award. “I feel the workforce was shocked once I mentioned straightaway that I might come and get it as a result of we acquired this horribly mistaken.”

Sentonas mentioned he wished to deliver 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 mentioned. “We’ll put it in the fitting 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 attributable to a bug in a software program replace, which induced the blue screen of death on Microsoft Home windows gadgets. 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 could have price Fortune 500 corporations round $5.4 billion in damages. Delta wrote in a U.S. Securities and Alternate Fee submitting final week that the outage affected 1.3 million of its customers, sooner or later after a few of these prospects 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 worth dropped 32% within the 12 days after the outage.

Associated: The Largest IT Outage in History Took Place on Friday Due to a Crowdstrike Update. Here’s How the CEO Is Responding.