CrowdStrike President Michael Sentonas accepted the «Most Epic Failure» award at the Pwnie Awards.
Just a few weeks ago, CrowdStrike’s software update has caused a global a failure in the operation of clients’ IT systems. Instead of avoiding attention, the company openly admitted its mistake. CrowdStrike’s president, Michael Sentonas, personally appeared at the Pwnie Awards to accept the award for «Most Epic Failure».
The Pwnie Awards — is an annual information security awards ceremony held during the Black Hat USA conference. This event recognizes the most significant achievements and biggest failures in cybersecurity over the past year. The name «Pwnie» comes from the hacker slang «pwn», which means «completely compromise» or «gain control of something».
The award ceremony took place at the Def Con conference, right after the Black Hat event. At the latter, CrowdStrike had one of the largest booths, giving away free T-shirts and action figures. A company spokesperson told TechCrunch that CrowdStrike was expressing its «gratitude and respect for the Black Hat community» to the participants.
A video of Sentonas’ speech has been circulating on the Internet. The audience of the ceremony, like the conference participants, seemed ready to give CrowdStrike a second chance. The audience greeted Sentonas with enthusiasm, appreciating his willingness to admit the company’s mistakes.
The organizers explained that this last award was an unexpected change in the program. They decided that CrowdStrike simply had to win this award. When the comically large trophy was brought to the stage to loud applause, Sentonas confessed:
«This is definitely not an award to be proud of».
«The team was surprised when I immediately agreed to get it», — Sentonas continued.
«We made a terrible mistake, and we’ve said it several times. It’s extremely important to recognize your accomplishments, but it’s also important to recognize when you’ve done something terribly wrong».
Sentonas said he would take the trophy back to CrowdStrike’s headquarters and display it in a prominent place. It will serve as a reminder that «our goal is to protect people, and we made a mistake. I want to make sure that everyone understands that these things should not happen».
Source: Techcrunch