The time to take yourself seriously is before the stuff happens. Being stuffy now doesn't add anything. Accepting the award means they have something to show every single new hire and everyone in that office will have a physical reminder to do better in the future.
I get the other points about consequences, but I don't think accepting this award is in anyway problematic. It's one of those things that I expect only people that care about "appearances" would complain about.
A less charitable way to look at it is that they weren't taking things seriously before the incident, and they're still not taking things seriously now.
What the most appropriate way to view it is, I don't know. I think I'd need to know way more than I do about Crowdstrike leadership.
This wasn't their first serious blunder this year even, just the most damaging and visible. The nature of their mistakes seem to be exceedingly preventable too, with them failing at textbook SRE practices. Their CEO has now been at the helm of two different companies that have had similar problems under his leadership. The evidence keeps piling up and people want to keep making excuses for negligent behaviors. Why should we excuse facts for hypotheticals?
I agree. They show up, cop to it, and collect a memento mori that will hopefully help motivate improvement in the future. They have a lot of work to do to repair their reputation, and I don’t think they’re foolish enough to think that this is anything more than a small step on a long path.
Ever had someone make a mistake that cost you time or money and then tried to laugh it off as no big deal? That's what this feels like.
The security industry needs to grow up.
The best thing they should have done is fire the CEO, apologized profusely, and then use their army of sales people to help make things right on a one on one basis with their customers.
I get the other points about consequences, but I don't think accepting this award is in anyway problematic. It's one of those things that I expect only people that care about "appearances" would complain about.