Delta Air Lines Holds CrowdStrike Liable for USD 500 Million in Losses, Flight Cancellations Over ‘Catastrophic’ Update Causing Global Outage in July, Cybersecurity Firm Sues Back

New York, October 29: US cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, known for disrupting the services and causing global Microsoft IT outages,  sued Delta Air Lines in a US District Court in Georgia over the faulty software update disrupted in July 2024. The faulty Falcon software update affected various businesses, including airlines, hotels, government institutions, healthcare, media firms, etc.

Reuters has reported that CrowdStrike sued Delta Air Lines to refute the claims it made about getting affected or harmed by the outage. Although Microsoft and CrowdStrike offered assistance to Delta Air Lines, it refused. This started as Delta filed a lawsuit on Friday in Fulton County Superior Court. In its lawsuit, the company said that the update from CrowdStrike was "catastrophic'. Elon Musk USD 1 Million Giveaway Offer Faces Legal Trouble, Philadelphia DA Files Lawsuit Against Billionaire's America PAC.

Delta Air Lines said that the US-based cybersecurity firm had caused 8.5 million global customers using Microsoft's Windows-based computers to be affected by the faulty and untested update. The lawsuit said that CrowdStrike forced the update on these customers. The airline said that the update had cancelled around 7,000 of its flights and disrupted the travel of 1.3 million customers. 

The lawsuit also said that the company's update had cost it over USD 500 million. On the same day, CrowdStrike filed a lawsuit against Delta Air Lines as a response and technology that delayed the carrier's ability to resume normal operations. CrowdStrike's lawsuit aimed to reduce the liability caused by the faulty software, which Delta denied. Elon Musk’s Starlink Expands to Virginia and West Virginia’s National Radio Quiet Zone in Collaboration with US Scientists, Preventing Radio Telescope Interference.

Delta Air Lines still maintained that CrowdStrike was responsible for USD 500 million in "out-of-pocket" losses. It further said that the cybersecurity firm would also have to be liable for legal fees, unspecified profits, and expenditures. The carrier said the cybersecurity firm had to test the faulty software before deployment, which could have reduced the harm and revenue loss.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Oct 29, 2024 11:19 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).