Delta Sues CrowdStrike In Fulton County Over Tech Glitch In July

Delta Sues CrowdStrike In Fulton County Over Tech Glitch In July

Demands compensation and punitive damages for a faulty update that was sent to several million Microsoft computers

Delta Air Lines has filed a lawsuit in Fulton County Superior Court in Georgia against CrowdStrike alleging that a faulty update caused a global outage that led to over 7,000 flight cancellations and $500 million in losses.

While the air carrier claimed that the cybersecurity company failed to test the update, CrowdStrike argued that Delta's outdated IT systems delayed data recovery.

Delta has demanded compensation and punitive damages from the outage, which started with a faulty update sent to several million Microsoft computers. The outage crippled Delta’s operations for several days, costing over $500 million in loss and extra expenditure.

On the other hand, CrowdStrike maintained that the airline was providing ‘misinformation’ and did not understand cybersecurity. It was trying to shift the blame for its slow recovery from the service interruption.

Meanwhile, the US Department of Transportation is investigating why Delta took longer to recover than other carriers.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said the department would investigate complaints about Delta customer service during the outage, including long waits for help and reports that unaccompanied minors were stranded at airports.

Delta claimed in the lawsuit that the outage occurred because CrowdStrike failed to test the update before rolling it out worldwide. Due to the firm’s fault, the airline had to cancel 7,000 flights for five days during the peak summer vacation.

The outage had also affected banks, hospitals and businesses.

The oldest operating airline in the US stated that CrowdStrike caused a global catastrophe because it sacrificed quality, took shortcuts, and circumvented the testing and certification processes it advertised for its benefit and profit.

However, a spokesperson for CrowdStrike said the company tried to resolve the dispute and that its liability to Delta was less than $10 million.

The spokesperson added that Delta's claims were based on "misinformation and demonstrated a lack of understanding of modern cybersecurity works. It reflected a desperate attempt to shift the blame for its slow recovery and its failure to modernize the antiquated IT infrastructure."