CrowdStrike accepts award for ‘most epic fail’ after global IT outage

Just a few weeks after its software update triggered a global IT meltdown, CrowdStrike isn’t shying away from the spotlight. In fact, the company’s president Michael Sentonas even took the stage at the Pwnie Awards to accept the award for Most Epic Fail.

The awards took place at Def Con, right after the Black Hat conference where CrowdStrike had one of the biggest booths, giving out free T-shirts and action figures. A spokesperson told TechCrunch that the company’s message to attendees was one of “gratitude and appreciation for the Black Hat community.”

Footage of Sentonas’ acceptance speech has been shared online; similar to the conference attendees who seemed willing to give CrowdStrike a second chance, the award audience sounded enthusiastic and appreciative of Sentonas for showing up to acknowledge the company’s mistakes.

https://twitter.com/singe/status/1822324795645575263

The organizers explained that this final award was a last-minute switch, because... how could CrowdStrike not win? Then, as a comically large trophy was brought onstage to loud cheers, Sentonas admitted this is “definitely not the award to be proud of receiving.”

“I think the team was surprised when I said straightaway that I would get it,” Sentonas continued. “Because we got this horribly wrong, we’ve said this a number of different times, and it’s super important to own it when you do things well, it’s super important to own it when you do things horribly wrong.”

Sentonas said he’d be taking the trophy back to CrowdStrike HQ and displaying it in a prominent place, as a reminder that “our goal is to protect people, and we got this wrong, and I want to make sure everybody understands these things can’t happen.”