August 1, 2024 at 02:46PM
CrowdStrike faces a federal lawsuit for failing to implement a phased approach in updating its software, causing a global outage detrimental to investors. The pension fund alleges that false claims about the reliability of CrowdStrike’s Falcon platform led to financial losses. Despite these challenges, CrowdStrike is working to restore affected systems.
The meeting notes highlight a lawsuit filed against CrowdStrike by the Plymouth County Retirement Association over the company’s handling of updates to its Falcon endpoint defense software. The association accused CrowdStrike, CEO George Kurtz, and CFO Burt Podbere of making false and misleading statements about the efficacy and reliability of the Falcon platform. The lawsuit stated that CrowdStrike failed to properly test and validate software updates, leading to a major outage that caused reputational harm and legal risk. Additionally, the company’s stock price took a hit, leading to financial losses for investors, including the retirement fund. The lawsuit referenced CrowdStrike’s promise to implement a canary deployment strategy to prevent future outages, but the retirement association remains unimpressed and seeks damages as a result of the company’s actions. This legal battle has also drawn the attention of Congress and analysts, with potential financial implications for CrowdStrike and Microsoft.