CrowdStrike Accepts 2024 Pwnie Award for Most Epic Fail

In a rare display of humility and accountability, CrowdStrike’s President Michael Sentonas accepted the 2024 Pwnie Award for Most Epic Fail at the DEF CON hacker convention in Las Vegas. The cybersecurity company’s massive global outage in July, which affected over 8.5 million Windows computers, earned it the top spot in the category.

Sentonas delivered an acceptance speech, acknowledging the team’s mistake and expressing his hope that the award would serve as a reminder to prevent similar failures in the future. "Definitely not the award to be proud of receiving," he said, "but it’s super important to own it when you do things horribly wrong, which we did in this case."

The Pwnie Award, now in its 17th year, recognizes outstanding achievements in technology security, as well as the greatest failures. CrowdStrike’s Most Epic Fail trophy dwarfed the smaller pony-shaped ones for other categories, a testament to the magnitude of its blunder.

The company’s global outage in July brought numerous companies and services to a sudden halt, impacting businesses such as banks, airlines, mail carriers, supermarkets, and telecommunications companies. Despite the severity of the incident, Sentonas’ in-person acceptance of the award was widely praised for its humility, class, and good humor.

The Pwnie Awards’ description of the Most Epic Fail Award reads, "This award will honor a person or corporate entity’s spectacularly epic fail – the kind of fail that lets the entire infosec industry down in its wake." CrowdStrike was the sole contender for the award, with no competition in the category.

The company’s acceptance of the award is a rare example of accountability in the tech industry, where mistakes are often swept under the rug. Sentonas’ willingness to own up to the failure and use it as a learning experience is a testament to CrowdStrike’s commitment to protecting people and preventing similar mistakes in the future.