Delta Airlines has reportedly filed a lawsuit against cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike over a widespread IT outage. According to the airline, the incident led to the cancellation of thousands of flights, leaving numerous passengers stranded and inconvenienced.
Troubles began when Delta’s system went down, causing problems with booking, flight scheduling, and other crucial operations. The situation caused chaos at airports as the company struggled to process passengers manually leading to a large number of delays and cancellations.
Delta alleges that CrowdStrike failed to prevent and efficiently handle a cybersecurity incident causing severe damages not only to the company’s financials but also to its reputation.
In the lawsuit, Delta claims that CrowdStrike had been hired to provide protection against cybersecurity risks, but their systems were unable to stop a serious outage. The airline argues that it relied on CrowdStrike’s services to secure its IT systems but the cybersecurity firm was not able to prevent a significant disruption that negatively affected their business operations.
While the specifics of the system failure have not been made public, the absence of cyber security measures adequate to protect from disruptions of this scale indicates potential shortcomings on CrowdStrike’s part, something that Delta is highlighting in its legal action.
The lawsuit underscores the critical role that cybersecurity plays in large scale, customer-facing businesses and the potentially disastrous consequences when these protections fail. Additionally, it signifies the increasing legal implications for cybersecurity service providers when they fail to provide the necessary protection against system failure.
