CrowdStrike Faces Backlash for Offering $10 UberEats Vouchers as Apology for Global IT Outage
CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity company, is under fire for giving staff and partners $10 UberEats vouchers as an apology for a global IT outage that caused chaos across airlines, banks, and hospitals last week. The company’s software update on Friday affected 8.5 million computers worldwide, leading to widespread disruptions.
In an email to its partners, CrowdStrike acknowledged the incident had caused extra work and offered the vouchers as a gesture of gratitude. However, the move was met with criticism, with some calling it a “clown show” and questioning its adequacy in compensating for the lost man-hours and customer trust.
Some recipients of the vouchers also reported issues with redeeming them, as Uber flagged them as fraud due to high usage rates. CrowdStrike admitted the problem and pledged to improve its software testing to prevent such incidents in the future.
The incident has prompted questions about financial compensation for affected customers and individuals. The top 500 US companies, excluding Microsoft, reportedly faced $5.4 billion in financial losses, with only a fraction of these losses being insured.
The US government has launched an investigation into Delta Airlines’ handling of the outage, with Delta’s CEO assuring customers of a full recovery. CrowdStrike’s CEO, George Kurtz, is set to testify in front of Congress about the incident, with lawmakers warning about the national security risks associated with network dependency.
As the fallout from the IT outage continues, cybersecurity experts are urging CrowdStrike to implement better safeguards and testing procedures to prevent similar incidents in the future.
