The global bill for Crowdstrike’s IT failure is expected to reach multi-billion. As a thank you for all the overtime worked, the company offered its employees a gift card for takeaway food, something that is now mocked on social media.
A bug in an update rolled out by cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike resulted in roughly 8.5 million Windows devices crashing and causing a global IT disaster.
The bill for the extensive IT mess is estimated to amount to many billions. The insurer Parametrix estimates that the financial losses globally could amount to just over 160 billion.
In a statement, Parametrix writes that American Fortune 500 companies are estimated to have lost almost 60 billion, according to Reuters.
Crowdstrike offered gift cards
In an email sent out to employees and partners, Crowdstrike apologizes to everyone who was forced to work extra, reports the news site Techcrunch,
“To express our gratitude, we offer you your next cup of coffee or an evening snack,” reads the email that the news site has seen.
Through a code in the email, employees are offered a gift card to the food delivery company Uber Eats. According to a post from a user on X, the value amounted to 7.75 pounds.
Social media jokes
Something Australian cyber security expert Troy Hunt jokes about in a post on X:
“Nothing says ‘We’re sorry for knocking out a significant portion of the world and causing global havoc’ like a ten dollar Uber Eats coupon,” he writes.
It would also appear that Crowdstrike again ran into technical problems. Some employees wrote on social media that they received an error message when they tried to redeem the coupon.
A spokesperson for Crowdstrike writes in an email to Techcrunch that it turned out that Uber flagged the gift cards as fraud due to “high usage rates”.
