The President of CrowdStrike has received the award for “Most Epic Fail” at the 2024 “Pwnie Awards”, which will be presented as part of this year’s hacker conference DefCon.
Per TechCrunchCrowdStrike was already present at the cybersecurity event, manning one of the event’s largest booths and handing out free t-shirts and action figures to attendees.
Fans have already jumped to the defense of the company, which Millions of Windows computers out of service until a fix is applied manually in safe mode, and calls it a “Class act“, after CrowdStrike President Michael Sentonas admitted that the station was “definitely not a station to be proud of hosting.”
CrowdStrike hangs by a thread
I am fascinated by the idea of a company that a lawsuit by Delta airline and another by its own shareholders can rehabilitate himself.
To be clear, Sentonas apologized for throwing large parts of the world’s digital infrastructure – from transportation to retail – into chaos. He admitted: “(CrowdStrike) got this terribly wrong (…) and it’s extremely important to take responsibility for that when you get things terribly wrong.”
“Our goal is to protect people,” he continued, “and we got that wrong, and I want to make sure everyone understands that this cannot happen.”
It’s a beautiful statement from CrowdStrike, but one that’s also being expressed on camera in front of a sympathetic audience that’s proud to host them. Actions speak louder than words, and that’s at least something the company claims to understand.
Last week it was revealed that systems are in place that actually allow “these things” (a defective update What couldn’t happen (due to CrowdStrike’s Falcon software) didn’t work as intended and allowed things to happen that couldn’t happen.
