The Company Behind Friday’s Massive Computer Outage Apologises With $10 Uber Eats Vouchers

If you were anywhere near a computer or anything that relies on a computer last Friday, chances are you know about the global computer outage. Crowdstrike, the company behind this unintentional outage, is now dishing out compensation — in the form of $10 Uber Eats vouchers.

As reported by TechCrunch, Crowdstrike is offering some of its partners Uber Eats vouchers to the value of $10, as way of compensation. We’re not talking about Joe Public here, Crowdstrike is extending this offer to companies who have paid real money for their cybersecurity services.

Last Friday’s IT incident (the worst in many, many years) was the result of a bad update being pushed to Windows computers that were running Crowdstrike’s Falcon Sensor security product. The result was that the affected computers crashed with the dreaded Blue Screen of Death.

Now, Crowdstrike has sent emails apologising to their partners, stating, “We recognise the additional work that the July 19 incident has caused. And for that, we send our heartfelt thanks and apologise for the inconvenience.”

By partners, they mean users, but those users may, in turn, have other users. So, their partners could, potentially, be in the position of having to compensate their own users. And Crowdstrike has stepped up with compensation in the form of a $10 Uber Eats card. You couldn’t make it up.

“To express our gratitude, your next cup of coffee or late night snack is on us!” the email continues, with a link as a QR code. And, according to TechCrunch, some of the people who’ve tried redeeming the credit have found that the link doesn’t work.

It’s doubtful that this is the last Crowdstrike has heard of this event. Not only does the offer of $10 Uber Eats credit seem a little insulting, it’s likely that some of Crowdstrike’s partners will have consulted their own lawyers about the possibility of taking legal action.

However, according to law firm Hill Dickinson, it’s not a clear case of Crowdstrike being at fault, and it depends upon what Crowdstrike could have done differently. “It is expected that, if something happens which is unforeseen and beyond the control of anyone involved in the contract, leading to a failure to do something under that contract, there can be no cause of action,” they explain.

Crowdstrike has already pledged to improve its testing, amongst other measures. Given the problems that occurred, including the cancellation of more than 5,000 flights, the fallout from this global computer outage will likely carry on for quite some time. And offering a $10 gift card by way of apology is not likely to be the PR win Crowdstrike was hoping for.