CrowdStrike Says Delta Air Lines Refused Their Help During IT Meltdown

Summary

  • CrowdStrike has fired back at Delta Air Lines, threatening to respond swiftly if the airline begins taking legal action.
  • Previously, the carrier threatened to take action against the cybersecurity firm in relation to its update that caused a massive IT outage globally.
  • While airlines in the US resotred operations relatively quickly, Delta Air Lines had struggled to do so for almost a week.

CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity solutions provider whose update had resulted in thousands of flights being canceled on a weekend in mid-July, has fired back at Delta Air Lines, with the company’s counsel alleging that the carrier and its chief executive had ignored offers for help as the airline continued canceling flights for several days.

Ignoring offers for help

The letter, dated August 4, was in response to Delta Air Lines’ threats of litigation against

CrowdStrike related to the IT meltdown that its update to the Falcon platform had caused on July 19, which affected flights for the next several days.

However,

Delta Air Lines

had struggled to restore its operations for almost a week, despite airlines in the United States restoring operations within days.

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Photo: Spyros Vasileiou | Shutterstock

Nevertheless, David Boies, representing CrowdStrike, stated in the letter that the cybersecurity company was very disappointed by the suggestions that it acted inappropriately and rejected allegations that it was grossly negligent or willfully engaged in malpractice in relation to the Falcon platform update.

“Your suggestion that CrowdStrike failed to do testing and validation is contradicted by the very information on which you rely from CrowdStrike’s Preliminary Post Incident Review.”

Boies continued that the company worked tirelessly to help customers restore impacted systems, and within hours, CrowdStrike reached out to Delta Air Lines, offering assistance. Furthermore, the firm’s chief executive officer (CEO) reached out to the CEO of the airline “but received no response.”

“CrowdStrike followed up with Delta on the offer for onsite support and was told that the onsite resources were not needed.”

Related

Delta Air Lines Enlists High-Profile Lawyer Against CrowdStrike

The airline is said to have suffered losses ranging from $350-500 million.

Shifting responsibility

Boies alleged that Delta Air Lines’ threats of litigation have distracted from the work that CrowdStrike has been doing and have contributed to a false narrative that the cybersecurity company was responsible for the carrier’s IT decisions and the response to the outage.

Should the airline pursue legal action, Delta Air Lines will have to explain itself why CrowdStrike claimed responsibility for its actions, while the airline did not.

Affirming his argument, the counsel questioned why the carrier’s competitors in the US had managed to restore operations much faster, why Delta Air Lines declined onsite help from CrowdStrike, and that any contractual liabilities were capped at an amount in the single-digit millions.

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Photo: Trong Nguyen | Shutterstock

Furthermore, Boies said that the carrier would have to explain every action or the failure to act by Delta Air Lines and/or its third-party providers related to the IT outage and the design and resilience of the airline’s IT systems.

The counsel noted that in light of threats of litigation, CrowdStrike was forced to demand Delta Air Lines keep all documents, records, and communications of any kind that were in the control of the airline, its employees, and its executives.

“As I am sure you can appreciate, while litigation would be unfortunate, CrowdStrike will respond aggressively, if forced to do so, in order to protect its shareholders, employees, and other stakeholders.”

Related

WOW: 6,855 Flights Were Canceled On Friday Following Global IT Outage

Air France-KLM had to downsize operations.

Losing $500 million

Meanwhile, Ed Bastian, the CEO of Delta Air Lines, told CNBC that the outage will cost the airline around $500 million, which included lost revenue, compensations, and accommodations that the carrier had to provide to its passengers.

The

US Department Of Transportation

reminded airlines of their obligations to refund passengers according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Reauthorization Act, enacted in May.

Delta Air Lines aircraft at JFK shutterstock_1017102973

Photo: agsaz | Shutterstock

In its preliminary post-incident review, CrowdStrike said that on July 19, the company released a regular update that resulted in a Windows system crash, with Mac and Linux hosts being unaffected by the release.

“On July 19, 2024, two additional IPC Template Instances were deployed. Due to a bug in the Content Validator, one of the two Template Instances passed validation despite containing problematic content data.”

While airlines in the United States had canceled 16,344 flights between July 19 and July 21, Delta Air Lines axed over 7,000 flights from July 19 to July 24, according to data that Flightradar24 provided to Simple Flying.

Related

USDOT Reminds Airlines Of Refund Obligations After Crowdstrike Global IT Fail

Pete Buttigieg’s letter was a warning to airline CEOs that they have to respect the rules enacted with the FAA Reauthorization Act.

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