Delta Air Lines has filed a lawsuit against CrowdStrike after a software update caused major problems in July. As a result, this incident grounded thousands of flights and led to over $500 million in losses for the airline. Delta claims that CrowdStrike’s carelessness significantly contributed to severe operational issues during the busy summer travel season.
The lawsuit, filed in Fulton County Superior Court, accuses CrowdStrike of breaking their contract and being negligent. Specifically, Delta states that the bad software update caused the well-known “blue screen of death” on millions of Windows computers worldwide. Consequently, this failure led to about 7,000 flight cancellations over five days, greatly disrupting travel plans for many passengers.
Delta’s financial losses are massive. In fact, the airline estimates it lost $380 million in revenue while incurring an additional $170 million in costs because of the incident. To seek compensation, Delta has hired well-known lawyer David Boies to handle the case against CrowdStrike and Microsoft. They are asking for damages to cover their losses and legal fees.
A key point in this lawsuit is Delta’s claim that it had turned off automatic updates from CrowdStrike. However, despite this, the faulty update still reached its systems. Delta argues that CrowdStrike’s Falcon software created an unauthorized entry point, which should not have happened. Therefore, they believe the situation could have been avoided.
CrowdStrike has admitted to the situation, blaming it on a single faulty Windows update. Nevertheless, they argue that Delta’s claims are based on a misunderstanding of cybersecurity practices. Furthermore, the fallout from this incident goes beyond Delta, affecting emergency services and financial institutions in several states.
Moreover, the U.S. Department of Transportation has started an investigation into the outage. This investigation will look into customer service issues, highlighting the wider impact of software failure on travelers.
Overall, this lawsuit underscores how much cybersecurity issues can affect airlines, especially Delta. Thus, it serves as a warning about the need for thorough testing and checks in the tech world.
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