Cybersecurity company CrowdStrike sent $10 gift cards to IT workers on Tuesday (July 23) in an email acknowledging the additional work it caused for them with last week’s IT outage cause by its software update.
“And for that, we send our heartfelt thanks and apologies for the inconvenience,” CrowdStrike Chief Business Officer Daniel Bernard said in the email, Bloomberg reported Wednesday (July 24), citing a copy of the email it reviewed.
Bernard added in the email to express its gratitude, CrowdStrike was sending the gift card to cover the IT workers’ next cup of coffee or late-night snack, per the report.
CrowdStrike spokesperson Kirsten Speas told Bloomberg that the email went to the firm’s teammates and partners who have been helping customers with the issue; it did not go to customers or clients.
TechCrunch reported Tuesday that when some recipients went to redeem the $10 Uber Eats gift card, they got an error message saying that it had been cancelled.
CrowdStrike spokesperson Kevin Benacci told TechCrunch that the company sent the cards and that, “Uber flagged it as fraud because of high usage rates.”
This news comes on the same day that CrowdStrike released a report on the crash that affected 8.5 million Windows machines around the world.
In the report, CrowdStrike said that a glitch in test software led to the outage. The firm also outlined what it aims to do to prevent the problem from recurring, such as implementing “a staggered deployment strategy for Rapid Response Content in which updates are gradually deployed to larger portions of the sensor base,” while also giving customers more control over the delivery of these updates, letting them choose when and where they are deployed.
It was also reported Wednesday that Delta Air Lines is facing a half-billion dollar hit after the outage and was still recovering from the incident.
CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz has been asked to appear before the House Homeland Security Committee to give public testimony about the outage.
A letter seeking his testimony said that the outage impacted key functions of the global economy, including flights, surgeries, and 911 emergency call centers.
