Delta and CrowdStrike Trade Lawsuits Over July Technology Outage
Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines and cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike have each gone to court, blaming the other over the global outage that led to thousands of canceled flights in July.
By Jayden Sweiler ·
The legal fight between Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines and cybersecurity company CrowdStrike has intensified, with each side now suing the other over a worldwide technology outage that disrupted air travel in July.
Delta filed its suit on Friday in Fulton County Superior Court in Georgia, near its headquarters. The airline accuses CrowdStrike of cutting corners and causing the outage that resulted in thousands of canceled flights. It is seeking compensation and punitive damages.
The disruption began with a faulty update that was pushed to several million Microsoft computers. According to Delta, the problem crippled its operations for several days and cost the airline more than $500 million in lost revenue and additional expenses. The company contends CrowdStrike failed to test the update before releasing it globally.
"CrowdStrike caused a global catastrophe because it cut corners, took shortcuts, and circumvented the very testing and certification processes it advertised, for its own benefit and profit," Delta said in the complaint.
CrowdStrike has responded with a lawsuit of its own, filed in U.S. District Court in Georgia, according to Reuters. The company is seeking a declaratory judgment and legal fees, Reuters reported. A CrowdStrike spokesperson said Delta's claims rest on "misinformation, demonstrate a lack of understanding of how modern cybersecurity works, and reflect a desperate attempt to shift blame for its slow recovery away from its failure to modernize its antiquated IT infrastructure."
Both CrowdStrike and Microsoft have said Delta turned down offers of help in recovering from the outage. Microsoft's lawyer said CEO Satya Nadella emailed Delta CEO Ed Bastian during the disruption but never received a reply.
The U.S. Department of Transportation is separately investigating why Delta took longer to recover than other airlines. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in July that the inquiry would also examine Delta's customer service, including what he called "unacceptable" lines for assistance and reports of unaccompanied minors left stranded at airports.
On July 25, Buttigieg told FOX 5 that the agency had received more than 3,000 complaints from Delta passengers. He said travelers affected by a disruption need to be able to reach an agent who can arrange meal and hotel vouchers and rebooking. Reports of people waiting in line for eight hours to reach someone by phone, or sleeping on airport floors, were a major concern, he said, and would be a major focus of the investigation.
In August, a group of passengers filed a class action lawsuit against Delta over how the airline handled the outage.
Source: FOX 5 Atlanta
