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I think the closest level of Brand disaster in our times would be the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. In that case, BP basically threw away their consumer brand i

I think the closest level of Brand disaster in our times would be the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. In that case, BP basically threw away their consumer brand in the US - they turned every single BP station into an Arco station (their subsidiary, "lower quality" brand at the time). Then they sold off or spun down a huge portion of their businesses to set aside money for legal fees. I don't know if Crowdstrike really has any other options at this point. The amount of legal liability the company is going to be under will be staggering and the brand reputation is worse than worthless.

jagged-chisel 2y ago
> ... BP basically threw away their consumer brand in the US ... That must not have lasted long. I don't recall a time when there wasn't a BP station during and after that disaster.
- legitster 2y ago
  Maybe it depends on where you live/how strong their brand presence was. But they completely pulled out of the West Coast at least. I watched them tear down BP signs and put up Arco signs a month after the spill.
  - tatersolid 2y ago
    I thought this was a typo. In the Chicago area, all the Amoco stations were rebranded BP before the Deepwater Horizon disaster. They remained BP afterwards to the best of my recollection. ARCO is apparently a gas station brand owned by Marathon but also resells BP in a few west coast states. Amoco, ARCO… naming things is hard I guess even outside computer science.
sophacles 2y ago
> The amount of legal liability the company is going to be under will be staggering and the brand reputation is worse than worthless. Citation for legal liability Crowdstrike has? Re reputation - I've read this about all sorts of annoyances that had real economic impact, i doubt this will make crowdstrike worthless any more than: * MS became worthless after Code Red or Slammer or any of the other late 90s/early 2000s breaches. * Apple became worthless after the iPhone that requried you to hold it a certain way while talking * Toyota became wortheless after the unintended acceleration issues * Facebook became worthless after screwing up the internet for a day. * Amazon become worthless after US-EAST went down screwing everyone over for an afternoon (pick a time). * Norfolk Southern became worthless after the east palastine derailment. * A thousand others.... This issue wasn't as impacting as many of those - some computers were down for a few hours and it made a mess. It takes a lot more than that to destroy a company or their brand reputation. Look how many people choose comcast- even in areas where there is good competition with fiber from a local reputable ISP.
- WrongAssumption 2y ago
  Equifax and Boeing are other examples
- kwere 2y ago
  Crowdstrike (unless it is a front of some sort) has absolutely not resilience as these other businesses, expecially after such blunder for a "security" company
  - sophacles 2y ago
    But no one was hacked? Some computers were down for a little bit, but no breach occurred, no data was trashed or leaked, no unauthorized access was gained. This wasn't a security event. In fact, for huge numbers of systems going offline is a far better alternative than say, failing open. Look at other security related companies of similar age and entrenchedness... Okta was breached twice by bad auth on their ticketing system. They are an auth company. This led to other hacks. They still are doing OK, with growing revenue. Solarwinds was breached and became the attack vector for several major hacks. They are still doing OK - in fact revenue has grown since then. (although solarwinds is much older). Cloudflare has caused major outages - their revenue has grown too. And on and on. Crowdstrike has had a rough 2024. They are also still the company that was called in to consult on breach after breach for the last decade+. If they get their shit together, next month at defcon Crowdstrike people will likely be drinking for free (and being the butt of some jokes). By next year few people will even remember this, and very very few will be uspet/angry about it. A huge number of affected IT people are already looking at it as "haha those guys messed up" and not even thinking about "how do we get off crowdstrike". No software is perfect, and very little of it is even any-good - people are willing to give those who make generally decent software (and have an otherwise good reputation) a lot of slack. I could be wrong, but I really doubt this kills the company or the brand rep.
    - justinclift 2y ago
      https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41066811 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41066811

jagged-chisel 2y ago

> ... BP basically threw away their consumer brand in the US ... That must not have lasted long. I don't recall a time when there wasn't a BP station during and after that disaster.

legitster 2y ago
Maybe it depends on where you live/how strong their brand presence was. But they completely pulled out of the West Coast at least. I watched them tear down BP signs and put up Arco signs a month after the spill.
- tatersolid 2y ago
  I thought this was a typo. In the Chicago area, all the Amoco stations were rebranded BP before the Deepwater Horizon disaster. They remained BP afterwards to the best of my recollection. ARCO is apparently a gas station brand owned by Marathon but also resells BP in a few west coast states. Amoco, ARCO… naming things is hard I guess even outside computer science.

sophacles 2y ago

> The amount of legal liability the company is going to be under will be staggering and the brand reputation is worse than worthless. Citation for legal liability Crowdstrike has? Re reputation - I've read this about all sorts of annoyances that had real economic impact, i doubt this will make crowdstrike worthless any more than: * MS became worthless after Code Red or Slammer or any of the other late 90s/early 2000s breaches. * Apple became worthless after the iPhone that requried you to hold it a certain way while talking * Toyota became wortheless after the unintended acceleration issues * Facebook became worthless after screwing up the internet for a day. * Amazon become worthless after US-EAST went down screwing everyone over for an afternoon (pick a time). * Norfolk Southern became worthless after the east palastine derailment. * A thousand others.... This issue wasn't as impacting as many of those - some computers were down for a few hours and it made a mess. It takes a lot more than that to destroy a company or their brand reputation. Look how many people choose comcast- even in areas where there is good competition with fiber from a local reputable ISP.

WrongAssumption 2y ago
Equifax and Boeing are other examples
kwere 2y ago
Crowdstrike (unless it is a front of some sort) has absolutely not resilience as these other businesses, expecially after such blunder for a "security" company
- sophacles 2y ago
  But no one was hacked? Some computers were down for a little bit, but no breach occurred, no data was trashed or leaked, no unauthorized access was gained. This wasn't a security event. In fact, for huge numbers of systems going offline is a far better alternative than say, failing open. Look at other security related companies of similar age and entrenchedness... Okta was breached twice by bad auth on their ticketing system. They are an auth company. This led to other hacks. They still are doing OK, with growing revenue. Solarwinds was breached and became the attack vector for several major hacks. They are still doing OK - in fact revenue has grown since then. (although solarwinds is much older). Cloudflare has caused major outages - their revenue has grown too. And on and on. Crowdstrike has had a rough 2024. They are also still the company that was called in to consult on breach after breach for the last decade+. If they get their shit together, next month at defcon Crowdstrike people will likely be drinking for free (and being the butt of some jokes). By next year few people will even remember this, and very very few will be uspet/angry about it. A huge number of affected IT people are already looking at it as "haha those guys messed up" and not even thinking about "how do we get off crowdstrike". No software is perfect, and very little of it is even any-good - people are willing to give those who make generally decent software (and have an otherwise good reputation) a lot of slack. I could be wrong, but I really doubt this kills the company or the brand rep.
  - justinclift 2y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41066811 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41066811