Vincent Flibustier, the fake CrowdStrike employee who claimed responsibility for the biggest computer failure in history
Vincent Flibustier’s photo went viral in minutes and already has nearly 4 lakh likes.
New Delhi:
“What is CrowdStrike? Why is my Windows computer showing the Blue Screen of Death? Who is responsible for the largest computer crash in history?”
These questions have dominated conversations around the world after a Microsoft bug caused Windows computers to shut down. While it is now known that an update to CrowdStrike’s “Falcon Sensor” antivirus program was responsible for the massive global outage, people are still wondering how such a faulty update could have been released and who was responsible.
Enter Vincent Flibustier, an X user posing as a Crowdstrike employee. Vincent caused a stir online with an AI-generated photo of himself outside Crowdstrike’s offices, captioned, “First day at Crowdstrike, quick update and afternoon off.”
First day at Crowdstrike, small update and afternoon of rest ✌️ pic.twitter.com/bOs4qAKwu0
—Vincent Flibustier 👽 (@vinceflibustier) July 19, 2024
The photo went viral within minutes and already has nearly 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 in which he took “responsibility” for causing the global outage.
Vincent Flibustier also changed his X (formerly Twitter) bio to go along with the parody. His bio read: “Former Crowdstrike employee, fired for unfair reason, only changed one line of code to optimize. Looking for a job as a system administrator.”
While he was trying to make a joke about it, thousands of people online bought into his satire and thought he was the one responsible for the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) on their system. Airlines, banks, TV stations, and several other industries scrambled to fix the problem, and people on social media scrambled after finding the “culprit.”
While several users praised him for making sure they didn’t have to work on Fridays, some posted abusive messages towards him.
A 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 France TV, where he said: “People are attracted to stories that confirm their preconceived ideas.”
Explaining why netizens immediately bought into his joke, he said: “No culprit has been named yet, I’m bringing it on a platter, people like to have a culprit. The culprit seems completely stupid, he’s proud of his stupidity, he takes the afternoon off on his first day at work. This falls directly into a huge buzz in which people absolutely need to have new information, and a fake is by nature new, 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 I Broke the Internet Today and What Lessons Can We Learn From It? #CrowdStrike 🧐
Several things that make this a good fake that worked: 👇
1. No culprit has been named yet, I bring it on a platter, people like to have a culprit.
2- The culprit seems completely stupid, he is proud… pic.twitter.com/JFJ2MEYNMQ—Vincent Flibustier 👽 (@vinceflibustier) July 19, 2024
Millions of users across the world are still facing issues, with Microsoft and CrowdStrike trying to resolve the issue as soon as possible.
The latest version of its Falcon Sensor software was supposed to strengthen CrowdStrike customers’ systems against hacking by updating the threats it defends against. However, faulty code in the update files has led to one of the most widespread technical outages in recent years for companies using Microsoft’s Windows operating system.
The problems quickly emerged after the update was rolled out on Friday, with users posting photos on social media of computers with blue screens displaying error messages. These screens are known in the industry as “blue screens of death.”
