Delta Air Lines is suing cybersecurity company CrowdStrike following the tech failure in July that resulted in thousands of canceled flights, reportedly to the tune of over half a billion dollars in revenue and operational costs for Delta. The glitch, said to have been caused by the defective software update from CrowdStrike, also affected Delta and other banks, hospitals, and others. Delta claims that CrowdStrike could not test the update properly, hence the monstrous problem during rush season.
In the latest round, CrowdStrike claims the airline’s infrastructure had long been outdated and had chosen internal decisions over infrastructure development that also delayed this extra time. According to the argument of CrowdStrike’s legal team, the real intent of Delta behind making these allegations against CrowdStrike is to deflect this crisis toward CrowdStrike. Instead, they believe it has brought about much lower liabilities upon CrowdStrike in contrast to what Delta claimed for it.
The US Department of Transportation has initiated an investigation into how Delta responds and treats stranded passengers as the controversy surges, and the potential fallouts will be seen from this litigation. Such legal battles portray the ever-growing risks and possible conflict between large organizations relying on outsourced cybersecurity and those companies providing them with this very crucial and complex service.
