Delta sued Crowdstrike after massive IT outage that caused thousands of cancellations

Delta Air Lines The plaintiff filed the case on Friday Crowdstrike In Georgia, the security software vendor was sued for breach of contract and negligence after an outage in July that brought down millions of computers and prompted the cancellation of 7,000 flights.

Other airlines recovered faster than Atlanta-based Delta, which said the incident reduced revenue by $380 million and brought in $170 million in costs. The faulty software update affected computers running Microsoft's Windows operating system.

Days after the outage, Delta hired David Boies of the law firm Boies Schiller Flexner to seek compensation from the crowdstrike. Microsoft. Delta sought compensatory damages to cover its damages, along with litigation costs and punitive damages.

“CrowdStrike created a global catastrophe because it cut corners, took shortcuts, and circumvented the very testing and certification processes it advertised for its own benefit and profit,” Delta said in its complaint. “If CrowdStrike had checked for the faulty update on even one computer prior to deployment, the computer would have crashed.”

Delta disabled automatic updates from CrowdStrike, but it arrived on his computer anyway, the airline said in the lawsuit. Delta claimed that CrowdStrike's Falcon software created and exploited an unauthorized door in Windows that the airline said it would never allow.

Delta CEO Ed Bastian told CNBC in an interview earlier this month, “In my opinion, the disaster that was created is fully deserving of compensation.”

CEO George Kurtz apologized for the incident, and the company promised to change its practices to prevent similar incidents. In August, CrowdStrike lowered its full-year guidance due to a customer commitment package related to the outage.

“While we aimed to reach a business resolution that puts customers first, Delta has chosen a different path,” a CrowdStrike spokesperson told CNBC in an email. “Delta's claims are based on unsubstantiated misinformation, demonstrate a lack of understanding of how modern cybersecurity works, and reflect a desperate attempt to blame its slow recovery on a failure to modernize its aging IT infrastructure.”

Microsoft discussed various potential enhancements with CrowdStrike and other endpoint security software vendors at a summit in September.

See: Delta fires back at crowdstrike, says outages cost $380 million in revenue