CrowdStrike accuses Delta of offering ‘misleading narrative’ about outages

Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike has accused Delta Air Lines of offering a “misleading narrative” about the recent global technology outage, as the two companies continue to dispute over who is to blame for the damages suffered by the airline.

Delta threatened to sue CrowdStrike over the outage, which the airline’s CEO said cost $500 billion.

Michael Carlinsky, a lawyer for CrowdStrike, said the company’s liabilities should be less than $10 million. He said CrowdStrike is “very disappointed” that Delta accused the company of acting inappropriately, noting CrowdStrike’s apology following the outage.

In a letter shared with The Hill, addressed to Delta attorney David Boies, Carlinsky said Sunday that the threat of a lawsuit from the airline “has contributed to a misleading narrative that CrowdStrike is responsible for Delta’s IT decisions and the response to interruption”.

Carlinsky questioned why other airlines were able to recover from the disruption more quickly. He said the cybersecurity company took responsibility for its actions after the outage and “Delta did not.”

On July 19, several airlines faced technological problems, but Delta faced a large number of cancellations in the following days. The outage was linked to a CrowdStrike update that crashed computers running Windows software.

CrowdStrike released a quick fix, but it took long periods for affected customers to recover. In the days following the outage, thousands of Delta flights were canceled or delayed.

In an appearance on CNBC, Delta CEO Ed Bastian said the airline has “no choice” but to sue.

In a statement to The Hill, a CrowdStrike spokesperson said Carlinky’s letter “speaks for itself.”

“We express our regret and apologies to all our customers for this incident and the disruption that resulted,” the statement said. “The public stance on the possibility of filing a meritless lawsuit against CrowdStrike as a long-time partner is not constructive for either party. We hope Delta agrees to work cooperatively to find a solution.”

In his letter, Carlinksy said litigation between the two companies would be regrettable, but CrowdStrike “will respond aggressively, if forced to do so, in order to protect its shareholders, employees and other stakeholders.”

Delta said in a statement to The Hill that the airline “has a long history of investing in safe, reliable and elevated service for our customers and employees. Since 2016, Delta has invested billions of dollars in IT capital expenditures in addition to the billions spent annually on IT operational costs.”

– Updated at 1:19 p.m.

This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story