CrowdStrike has apologized and offered a gift card to all customers affected by Friday’s computer outage. The cybersecurity firm sent a letter explaining the flaw that caused significant disruption. Surprisingly, the letter included an UberEats voucher for a coffee.
Please follow us on Twitter and Facebook
According to a report by TechCrunch, CrowdStrike sent an email to all its customers to apologize for the July 19 incident. The company acknowledged the additional work the outage caused and expressed “its sincerest gratitude and apologies for the inconvenience.” The company detailed the source of the issue and the steps they took to resolve it.
While this type of communication is common among service providers, what stands out is the end of the letter. To compensate for the problems that affected airports, hospitals, banks, and the UK Stock Exchange, CrowdStrike offered a $10 voucher for UberEats.
“To express our gratitude, your next cup of coffee or snack is on us! Access your UberEats credit using the key or by scanning the QR code below.”
According to TechCrunch, the email was sent by Daniel Bernard, CrowdStrike’s Chief Commercial Officer. The company’s response to an incident that resulted in multi-million dollar losses sparked a backlash on social media. CrowdStrike had to backtrack and cancel the gift cards.
The initiative to offer a coffee or snack contrasts with the stance of George Kurtz, CEO of CrowdStrike. He published a letter apologizing for the incident.
“Everyone at CrowdStrike understands the seriousness and impact of the situation. Nothing is more important to me than the trust our clients and partners have placed in CrowdStrike,”
He said.
Read Also: CrowdStrike Provides New Information About the Cause
CrowdStrike Affected Millions of Computers Worldwide
According to Microsoft, the CrowdStrike flaw affected more than 8 million computers. The tech giant released a statement detailing the incident and the company’s strategy to address it.
“We estimate that the CrowdStrike update affected 8.5 million Windows devices,“
The company said.
“While the percentage was small, the broad economic and social impacts reflect the use of CrowdStrike by enterprises running many critical services.”
The company has had to deal with the stigma of the computer crash. The failure was initially identified as “the Microsoft crash” due to the blue screens. Microsoft clarified that it was not their incident but supported Windows users because it impacted their customer ecosystem.
Meanwhile, Microsoft has criticized the European Union, saying it bears some responsibility for the CrowdStrike failure. A company spokesperson told The Wall Street Journal that a legal agreement prevents them from blocking third parties from accessing the Windows kernel. Unlike Google and Apple, Microsoft must guarantee access to the Windows API, so a similar incident could happen again.
