Blame game: CrowdStrike hits back at Delta Air Lines over litigation threat

CrowdStrike (NASDAQ:CRWD) has rejected Delta Air Lines' (NYSE:DAL) claims that the cybersecurity firm was to blame for the carrier's extended flight disruptions in the aftermath of last month's global tech outage.”CrowdStrike reiterates its apology to Delta , its employees, and its customers,” its external lawyer Michael Carlinsky wrote in a letter to Delta's counsel David Boies.” However, CrowdStrike is highly disappointed by Delta's suggestion that it acted inappropriately and strongly rejects any allegation that it was grossly negligent or committed willful misconduct.”

Carlinsky said CrowdStrike reached out to Delta within hours of the incident to offer assistance, after which CEO George Kurtz personally reached out to Delta's chief Ed Bastian, but received no response.”CrowdStrike followed up with Delta on the offer, and was told that the onsite resources were not needed,” Carlinsky noted.He said Delta's public threat of litigation “contributed to a misleading narrative that CrowdStrike is responsible for Delta's IT decisions and response to the outage,” and pointed to the fact that other airlines recovered from the IT meltdown much faster.

Carlinsky said any liability by CrowdStrike is “contractually capped at an amount in the single-digit millions… while litigation would be unfortunate, CrowdStrike will respond aggressively, if forced to do so.”Bastian recently said the impact from the IT outage would cost the airline $500 million. Delta plans to seek damages from CrowdStrike and Microsoft for the outage.