CrowdStrike seeks dismissal of Delta’s lawsuit over July cybersecurity outage

• Published On: 18 December 2024 at 08:39

CrowdStrike has moved to dismiss Delta Air Lines' lawsuit over the July cybersecurity outage, claiming that Delta is attempting to circumvent the terms of the contract between the two companies.

Delta's lawsuit stems from the outage, which resulted in flight cancellations and stranded passengers, according to CNBC.

CrowdStrike claims that the lawsuit is improper and seeks dismissal based on the contractual agreement in place.

CrowdStrike's defense against Delta's lawsuit is based on a provision in their agreement that limits the cybersecurity provider's liability and caps damages.

It claims that Delta is attempting to circumvent these terms. Furthermore, CrowdStrike claims that under Georgia law, Delta cannot reframe a breach of contract issue as tort claims, which supports its motion to dismiss the case.

"As an initial matter, Georgia's economic loss rule specifically precludes Delta's efforts to recover through tort claims the economic damages it claims to have suffered," a CrowdStrike spokesperson said.

Delta claims that the July cybersecurity outage cost the company more than $500 million in canceled flights, refunds, and passenger accommodations, and it is suing CrowdStrike to recover these expenses.

However, the impact on Delta's reputation as a premium carrier is difficult to quantify at this time, and the outcome of a Department of Transportation investigation into the outage remains unknown.

Despite the July cybersecurity outage, Delta continues to use CrowdStrike's services. This is most likely because switching cybersecurity providers in a large and complex system like Delta's is a difficult and time-consuming task.

CrowdStrike said it moved quickly to try to assist Delta, but the cybersecurity company claims its offers were turned down. "We are good for now," one message from a Delta executive quoted by CrowdStrike read.

CrowdStrike stated that its executives were in close contact on the day of the outage, implying an active role in dealing with the situation as it unfolded.

"Delta repeatedly rebuffed any assistance from CrowdStrike or its partners," the firm said.

CrowdStrike claims that Delta's internal practices and systems, rather than the outage itself, caused the widespread delays and cancellations.

"Delta was an outlier." Although Delta acknowledges that it took only hours, not days, for Delta employees to "remediate the outage," CrowdStrike wrote in its filing, "cancellations far exceeded the flight disruptions its peer airlines experienced."

A Delta spokesperson was unavailable to comment.