In a surprising and candid moment, CrowdStrike's president, Michael Sentonas, accepted the “Most Epic Fail” award during the Def Con hacking conference in Las Vegas. The award, which recognized the company’s software update that led to a global IT outage last month, was given at the annual Pwnie Awards ceremony. The Pwnie Awards are known for celebrating both the successes and failures of the cybersecurity community.

Sentonas admitted during his acceptance speech that the award was not something to be proud of but emphasized the importance of taking responsibility when things go wrong. He humorously mentioned that the award would be displayed prominently at CrowdStrike’s headquarters as a reminder for everyone at the company.

The outage, triggered by a faulty software update from CrowdStrike, caused significant disruptions worldwide, particularly impacting companies like Delta Airlines. The issue was so severe that it led Microsoft to suggest changes to Windows that might limit kernel access for external companies like CrowdStrike.

CrowdStrike attributed the problem to a testing bug and has since pledged to improve its testing processes and error management. The company also plans to stagger future updates to prevent similar incidents from occurring.

Last year’s “Most Epic Fail” award went to the U.S. Transportation Security Administration after a hacker exposed the agency’s "no-fly" list on an unprotected server.