CrowdStrike is offering a $10 UberEats gift card as an apology for the recent outage

(Image credit: Shutterstock.com / DELBO ANDREA)

After distributing a security update that recently caused worldwide blue-screen-of-death (BSOD) for Windows computers, CrowdStrike is offering a $10 UberEats gift card to some of those affected as an apology.

One person who received a giftcard from the company (via TechCrunch) stated that the voucher arrived with a message stating that CrowdStrike recognizes “the additional work that the July 19 incident has caused.”

Multiple images of the email from CrowdStrike have appeared on X, with the email signing off with, “To express our gratitude, your next cup of coffee or late night snack is on us!”

Vouchers flagged as fraud

The emails appear to have been sent by Daniel Bernard, CrowdStrike’s Chief Business Officer, with CrowdStrike later confirming to TechCrunch the vouchers were indeed distributed by the company to “teammates and partners who have been helping customers through this situation,” spokesperson Kevin Benacci said.

Some users later reported that when they attempted to redeem the voucher, they received an error message stating that the gift card “has been canceled by the issuing party and is no longer valid.” “Uber flagged it as fraud because of high usage rates,” Benacci said.

One X user said that the voucher was worth £7.75 ($10 by today's exchange) in the United Kingdom.

The CrowdStrike error affected an estimated 8.5 million Windows machines after a routine update resulted in machines having out-of-bounds memory reads causing the BSOD.

CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz issued an apology on its website, “All of CrowdStrike understands the gravity and impact of the situation. Nothing is more important to me than the trust and confidence that our customers and partners have put into CrowdStrike. As we resolve this incident, you have my commitment to provide full transparency on how this occurred and steps we’re taking to prevent anything like this from happening again.”

The news comes as Parametrix, a cloud monitoring, modeling, and insurance services provider, estimates the total cost of the CrowdStrike outage to the Fortune 500 (excluding Microsoft) sits at $5.4 billion, with healthcare ($1.938 billion) and banking sectors ($1.149 billion) taking the brunt of the financial hit.

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Benedict has been writing about security issues for over 7 years, first focusing on geopolitics and international relations while at the University of Buckingham. During this time he studied BA Politics with Journalism, for which he received a second-class honours (upper division), then continuing his studies at a postgraduate level, achieving a distinction in MA Security, Intelligence and Diplomacy. Upon joining TechRadar Pro as a Staff Writer, Benedict transitioned his focus towards cybersecurity, exploring state-sponsored threat actors, malware, social engineering, and national security. Benedict is also an expert on B2B security products, including firewalls, antivirus, endpoint security, and password management.