Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike caused a global outage last month that affected a wide range of businesses, including Microsoft 365 apps that stopped working and the UK’s National Health Service system. One company particularly affected was Delta Airlines, which canceled thousands of flights and lost $500 million in five days. CrowdStrike’s response to Delta was more of a “well, they tried.”
CrowdStrike’s lawyers sent a letter to Delta’s team in response to legal threats over the massive outage that occurred on July 19. In the letter, the cybersecurity company said it was “extremely disappointed with Delta’s assertions that CrowdStrike was improper, and strongly denies any allegations of gross negligence or willful misconduct.” The letter went on to say that the company did everything it could, and criticized Delta for taking so long to resume operations when its competitors did so sooner. The company wrote ominously that if it takes legal action, “Delta will have to explain to the public, shareholders, and ultimately a jury why CrowdStrike took responsibility for its actions promptly, transparently, and constructively, while Delta did not.”
“We express regret and apologies to all our customers for this incident and the resulting confusion,” a CrowdStrike spokesperson said in an email. “Publicly posing the possibility of filing a baseless lawsuit against CrowdStrike, a longtime partner, is not constructive for any party. We hope Delta agrees to work together to find a resolution.”
Delta Air Lines said it had nothing to add beyond comments made by CEO Ed Bastian in an interview with CNBC on July 31. Bastian said CrowdStrike does not offer any compensation for the outages.
CrowdStrike wrote in a blog post on July 25 that the cause of the outage was linked to an update the company released for its Windows systems. The update turned out to be flawed, setting off a chain reaction that caused systems to not work properly unless they were Mac or Linux. CrowdStrike says the issue was resolved when it reverted the update on Friday morning, but the damage was already done.
