A federal judge in the United States has dismissed a lawsuit brought against CrowdStrike in the wake of its 2024 Falcon security platform outage that caused disruptions around the globe.
The shareholder suit, led by New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, alleged that CrowdStrike had “no test plans and no quality assurance team” and that former employees had claimed that the cyber security firm had maximised speed and profit over other concerns.
As part of his dismissal, US District Judge Robert Pitman in Austin said that CrowdStrike’s investors had “failed to plausibly plead a strong inference of [intent to defraud] for the individual defendants or for CrowdStrike itself”.
The court went one step further, noting that it was the shareholders who were at issue.
“The court agrees with defendants that the statements pointed to by plaintiffs are neither false nor misleading when considered in the context from which plaintiffs removed them,” the court said in its analysis.
“The court concludes that if anyone is being misleading, it is the plaintiffs.”
CrowdStrike’s chief legal officer, Cathleen Anderson, was pleased by the decision.
“We appreciate the court’s thoughtful consideration and decision to dismiss this case,” Anderson said in a statement.
CrowdStrike has faced several lawsuits following the botched rollout of an update to its Falcon platform. Delta Airlines brought a suit against the company seeking US$500 million in damages in October 2024, while another suit representing airline passengers was dismissed last year.
David Hollingworth
David Hollingworth has been writing about technology for over 20 years, and has worked for a range of print and online titles in his career. He is enjoying getting to grips with cyber security, especially when it lets him talk about Lego.