Crowdstrike Tells Delta It ‘Wasn’t Too Reckless’ When It Started Global Outages

Cybersecurity company Crowdstrike caused disruptions around the world last month affecting dozens of companies from Microsoft 365 applications not working to the National Health Service to the UK One company affected, in particular, Delta Air Lines, canceled thousands of flights resulting in millions 500 dollars in five days. Crowdstrike’s response to Delta is like “oh, we tried.”

Attorneys for Crowdstrike sent a letter to the Delta team in response to legal threats regarding the massive outage that occurred on July 19. The cybersecurity company said in the letter that it is “deeply disappointed by Delta’s suggestion that CrowdStrike acted improperly and strongly rejects any allegations of gross negligence or willful wrongdoing.” ” The letter went on to say that the company had done everything it could and cast a shadow over Delta by taking so long to get back up and running while its competitors were soon back up and running. The company wrote of the scandal, if it takes legal action, “Delta will have to explain to the public, its shareholders, and ultimately to a judge why CrowdStrike took responsibility for its actions – promptly, transparently, and constructively – while Delta did not.”

“We express our regret and apologize to all of our customers for this incident and the inconvenience it caused,” a Crowdstrike spokesperson said via email. “Publicly talking about suing CrowdStrike as a long-term partner is not good for any organization. We hope that Delta will agree to work together to find a solution.”

Delta says it has nothing to add other than comments made by company CEO Ed Bastian during an interview with CNBC on July 31. Bastian says Crowdstrike did not issue compensation for the outage.

Crowdstrike blogged on July 25 that the cause of the outage was related to an update released to Windows systems. The update turned out to be buggy and started a chain reaction of apps not working properly unless it’s a Mac or Linux. Crowdstrike says the problem was fixed when it rolled out the update on Friday morning, but the damage was already done.