Delta Sues CrowdStrike Over July IT Outage

Delta Air Lines is suing cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike in Georgia after a botched software update in July led to a major global outage, forcing Delta to cancel 7,000 flights and impacting 1.3 million passengers. The airline claims this incident cost them over $500 million and blames CrowdStrike for delivering “untested and faulty” updates that caused widespread computer crashes.

The issue reportedly affected 8.5 million Windows computers worldwide, disrupting sectors from banking to healthcare. Delta argues that if CrowdStrike had tested the update, the crash could have been avoided. Instead, the faulty software update caused extensive delays and forced Delta into costly recovery efforts.

CrowdStrike denies responsibility, saying Delta’s claims lack understanding of cybersecurity. The July incident has since prompted a U.S. Transportation Department investigation into the matter.