CrowdStrike moves to dismiss Delta suit, citing contract terms

cloud strike Moved for layoff on Monday night delta airlines The airlines filed a lawsuit over a cybersecurity failure in July that led to flight cancellations and stranded passengers, alleging the airlines’ lawsuit was an attempt to circumvent a contract between the two companies.

CrowdStrike’s agreement with Delta includes provisions limiting CrowdStrike’s liability and caps on damages, which the cybersecurity provider says Delta is currently trying to circumvent. CrowdStrike also argued in its filing that Georgia law prevents Delta Air Lines from converting breach of contract claims into tort claims. Delta Airlines is based in Atlanta.

“As a first matter, Georgia’s economic loss provisions specifically preclude Delta’s efforts to recover through tort claims the economic damages Delta claims it has suffered,” CrowdStrike said. I wrote it.

Delta Air Lines said a cybersecurity failure in July cost it more than $500 million in canceled flights, refunds and passenger lodging costs. It is seeking to recover these costs from CrowdStrike through litigation. However, the damage done to Delta’s reputation as a luxury airline has not yet been quantified, nor has the impact of the Department of Transportation’s investigation into Delta’s suspension of service.

Delta Air Lines continued to rely on CrowdStrike’s services even after the outage, likely because it would be extremely difficult to change cybersecurity providers for a system as large and complex as Delta’s.

Still, CrowdStrike said it acted quickly to assist Delta Air Lines, but said the cybersecurity firm’s offer was rejected. “Things are going well so far,” a message from a Delta executive quoted by CrowdStrike said. The cybersecurity company said its executives were in close contact on the day of the outage.

“Delta Air Lines has repeatedly refused any assistance from CrowdStrike or its partners,” CrowdStrike wrote.

CrowdStrike also alleges that Delta’s unique practices and systems caused widespread delays and cancellations, unlike other industry peers that recovered from power outages more quickly.

“Delta Air Lines was an outlier. While Delta Air Lines acknowledges that it took Delta employees just hours, not days, to repair the outage, CrowdStrike said in its filing that The number of flight cancellations far exceeded the disruptions experienced by peer airlines.”

The cybersecurity company’s stock took a big hit after the outage, plummeting 44%. The company has since largely recovered from these losses and posted strong quarterly results even after lowering its earnings outlook due to the incident. CrowdStrike has been helped by the relative stability of its product, especially among larger companies.

A spokesperson for Delta Air Lines could not be reached for comment.