If you were out and about last Friday, you may have had trouble shopping, grabbing a coffee, or, God forbid, catching a flight because of a bug that crashed 8.5 million Microsoft devices and crippled several Linux computers.
After realizing that the root of the problem was coming from a configuration file in CrowdStrike’s Falcom platform update, the cybersecurity firm worked around the clock to fix the issue, and everything seems to be back to normal. As a partial apology for its massive mistake, Crowdstrike sent $10 Uber Eats vouchers to its partners and team members (via TechCrunch).
An email was sent and published to X, but has since been deleted: “To show our gratitude, we assure you that your next cup of coffee or late-night snack will be on us!”
Another recipient sent the coupon to Xrevealing that in the UK the total credit is £7.75. Depending on where you are, a fair chunk of that money is likely to go towards the delivery fee, with many restaurants on Uber Eats having a minimum order of around £9-10.
CrowdStrike partner Louis Corriero expressed his outrage LinkedIn: “A gesture of a cup of coffee or an Uber Eats credit as an apology does not seem to compensate for the tens of thousands of lost work hours and customer trust related to the July 19 incident.”
However, many users were unable to even redeem the coupon because entering the code only resulted in an error message. “We have sent it to our teammates and partners who have been helping customers in this situation,” CrowdStrike spokesman Kevin Benacci said. says TechCrunch. “Uber flagged this as a scam due to high usage rates.” The issue has since been resolved, so if you have a coupon, it should now work.
Last week’s bug has also been more or less fixed. Initially, there was a technical fix for the flawed CrowdStrike update that required direct access to each affected device. It wasn’t a quick fix, as larger organizations had to spend a lot of time fixing individual devices. Fortunately, Microsoft has released a simpler fix: a data recovery tool that has two repair options “to help IT admins speed up the repair process,” according to Microsoft support.
CrowdStrike’s CEO also apologized for the global IT outage: “I want to sincerely apologize to everyone for the outage. Everyone at CrowdStrike understands the gravity and impact of this situation.”
