Just a few weeks after a CrowdStrike antivirus update caused a global IT crisis, the company is not shying away from criticism. On the contrary, the company’s president, Michael Sentonas, personally took the stage at the Pwnie Awards to receive the award for “Most Epic Failure,” TechCrunch reports.

The award ceremony took place at the Def Con cybersecurity exhibition, after the Black Hat conference, where CrowdStrike had a significant presence, including one of the largest booths giving away free T-shirts. The company noted that CrowdStrike’s message to the conference attendees was “gratitude and respect for the Black Hat community.”

The video of Sentonas’ speech was posted on X (ex-Twitter), and it is clear that, like the conference participants who were ready to give CrowdStrike a second chance, the award audience reacted enthusiastically to Sentonas’ willingness to publicly admit the company’s mistake.

The organizers explained that the decision to give CrowdStrike the final award for Most Epic Failure was made right before the conference – how could they not win? When the comically large trophy was brought to the stage to loud applause, Sentonas frankly admitted: “definitely not an award to be proud of receiving.”

“I think the team was surprised when I said straightaway that I would get it,” Sentonas continued. “Because we got this horribly wrong, we’ve said this a number of different times, and it’s super important to own it when you do things well, it’s super important to own it when you do things horribly wrong.”

Sentonas added that he plans to take the trophy back to CrowdStrike’s headquarters and display it prominently as a reminder that “our goal is to protect people, and we got this wrong, and I want to make sure everybody understands these things can’t happen.”