Vincent Flibustier’s photo went viral within minutes and already has close to 4 lakh likes.
New Delhi:
“What is CrowdStrike? Why is my Windows PC showing the Blue Screen of Death? Who is responsible for the biggest IT outage?”
These are questions that have dominated conversations around the world since a Microsoft blunder sent Windows PCs into a tailspin. Although it is now known that a ‘Falcon Sensor’ antivirus update from CrowdStrike was responsible for the massive worldwide outage, people are still wondering how such a flawed update was allowed to be released and who is behind it.
Enter Vincent Flibustier, an X user posing as a Crowdstrike employee. Vincent broke the internet with an AI-altered photo of himself outside CrowdStrike’s office, along with the caption, “First day at Crowdstrike, a little update and afternoon pickup.”
First day at Crowdstrike, a little refresher and an afternoon off ✌️ pic.twitter.com/bOs4qAKwu0
— Vincent Flibustier 👽 (@vinceflibustier) July 19, 2024
The photo went viral within minutes and now has close to 4 lakh likes and has been shared by over 36,000 users.
Two hours later, Flibustier posted another update – the company had fired him. He also shared a short video claiming “responsibility” for causing the global outage.
Vincent Flibustier also changed his bio to X (formerly Twitter) to accompany the parody. His bio said: “Former Crowdstrike employee fired for unfair reason changed just 1 line of code to optimize. Looking for a job as a Sysadmin.”
While he tried to make a joke of it, thousands online bought his satire and decided he was responsible for the blue screen of death (BSOD) on their system. Airlines, banks, TV channels and several other industries scrambled to deal with the problem, and people on social media went into a frenzy after finding the ‘culprit’.
While several users praised him for ensuring they didn’t have to work on Fridays, some posted abusive messages about him.
Some Pendejo wants me dead. pic.twitter.com/IYh5JKLhTe
— Vincent Flibustier 👽 (@vinceflibustier) July 20, 2024
The truth: Vincent is a satirical writer who runs Nordpresse, a Belgian parody news site. He appeared as a guest on French television, where he noted: “People are drawn to stories that confirm their preconceptions.”
Explaining further why people on the internet immediately jumped on his prank, he said: “There’s no culprit named yet, I’m bringing it to the table, people like to have a culprit. The culprit looks completely stupid, he is proud of his stupidity, he takes the afternoon off on the first day of work. This falls right into a huge hype where people absolutely have to have new information, and the fake is new in nature, you won’t read it anywhere else.
He also said the post was shared by those who knew it was a joke, but the amplification sent it into a zone where people took every word of the tweet literally.
🔥 How did I break the internet today and what lessons can we learn from it? #Crowdstrike 🧐
A few things that make it a good fake that worked: 👇
1. No culprit has been named yet, I’m bringing it to the plate, people like to have a culprit.
2- The culprit looks completely stupid, he is proud… pic.twitter.com/JFJ2MEYNMQ— Vincent Flibustier 👽 (@vinceflibustier) July 19, 2024
Millions of users around the world are still experiencing issues, and Microsoft and CrowdStrike are working to resolve the issue as soon as possible.
The latest version of its Falcon Sensor software aimed to make CrowdStrike customers’ systems more secure against hacking by updating the threats it protects against. However, faulty code in the update files led to one of the most widespread technology outages in recent years for companies using Microsoft’s Windows operating system.
The problems came to light quickly after the update was released on Friday, and users posted photos on social media of computers with blue screens displaying error messages. These are known in the industry as “blue screens of death”.
