CrowdStrike sued by shareholders over global outage

CrowdStrike is facing a lawsuit from its shareholders following a significant IT outage caused by a faulty software update that affected over 8.5 million Microsoft Windows computers globally. The lawsuit, filed in a federal court in Austin, Texas, claims that the company made "false and misleading" statements regarding its software testing processes, leading to a 32% drop in its share price and a loss of approximately $25 billion in market value within 12 days after the incident. CrowdStrike has denied these allegations and stated that it will vigorously defend itself against the class action lawsuit. The company reported that the outage, which began on July 19, was resolved by July 29, and attributed the issue to a bug in a system meant to ensure the reliability of software updates. Delta Air Lines, which experienced a $500 million loss due to the disruption, is also seeking compensation from CrowdStrike. The incident has raised concerns about the adequacy of software testing and the potential for similar issues in the future. CrowdStrike's CEO had previously assured investors that their software was "validated, tested and certified," which is now under scrutiny due to the outage. The company has indicated that it plans to enhance its software testing and checks to prevent future occurrences.