Austin’s CrowdStrike facing class action lawsuit

AUSTIN – The Austin American-Statesman reports Austin-based CrowdStrike’s worldwide outage last month now has the company staring down a barrage of escalating legal issues. On Monday, the cybersecurity company was sued by airline passengers whose flights were delayed or canceled. In a proposed class action lawsuit filed in federal court in Austin, Texas, three travelers accused CrowdStrike of negligence in testing and deploying its software, which they claim caused the outage. The disruption also affected banks, hospitals, and emergency services worldwide. The plaintiffs state in the suit that travelers were sent into a frenzy and in response were forced to spend hundreds of dollars on lodging, meals and alternative travel. The suit goes on to add that others missed work or suffered health problems from having to sleep on the airport floor. The lawsuit concludes that CrowdStrike should pay compensatory and punitive damages to all fliers whose flights were disrupted.

CrowdStrike said in a statement: “We believe this case lacks merit and we will vigorously defend the company.” The Statesman previously reported that Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian said there is “no choice” but to initiate a lawsuit against CrowdStrike after it caused widespread software outages in July that cost the airline $500 million. Beyond public apologies from its CEO, CrowdStrike released a blog post detailing how it will change operations to avoid a similar event. Changes include adjusting its update verification system to better filter faulty code. Additionally, the company said it was no longer going to release mass updates to avoid the possibility of mass outages. Not long after the crash, CrowdStrike sent Uber Eats gift cards worth $10 to its partners who worked long hours to restore systems for customers. According to TechCrunch, a tech news website, the Uber Eats voucher was accompanied by an email that read: “And for that, we send our heartfelt thanks and apologies for the inconvenience,” and the email continued, “To express our gratitude, your next cup of coffee or late night snack is on us!” The response to the voucher was a mix of confusion and frustration, and, due to high usage rates, Uber flagged some of the vouchers as fraudulent making them unusable. CrowdStrike is adamant that it sent the voucher as a thank you and not as an apology.