July"s botched update to CrowdStrike"s cybersecurity systems on millions of Windows PCs caused huge problems for tons of companies and individuals. This weekend, however, CrowdStrike decided to strike against allegations that have been made against it by one specific company, Delta Airlines.
Delta canceled thousands of flights over a several-day period because of issues that it claims were due to the failed CrowdStrike update. The company is already planning to file lawsuits against both CrowdStrike and Microsoft. In an interview with CNBC last week, Delta"s CEO Ed Bastian said the canceled flights cost the company $500 million, He added that CrowdStrike only offered " free consulting advice" for restoring its PCs.
Over the weekend, CrowdStrike"s legal team sent a letter to Delta"s attorney David Boies. CNN reports that the letter contradicts some of Bastian"s claims about CrowdStrike"s support.
The letter claims that CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz personally tried to contact Bastian, offering onsite assistance to help fix Delta"s issues. The letter claims that Bastian did not respond to that offer. It added that Delta later told CrowdStrike it would not need any help in restoring its Windows PCs.
The letter also commented on Delta"s preparations to take legal action against CrowdStrike, stating:
Should Delta pursue this path, Delta will have to explain to the public, its shareholders, and ultimately a jury why CrowdStrike took responsibility for its actions—swiftly, transparently, and constructively—while Delta did not.
As of this writing, Delta has yet to file any legal motion about July"s flight cancelations. Both CrowdStrike and Microsoft posted ways to restore the Windows PCs that were affected by the botched update. Microsoft recently stated it had 5,000 of its support engineers working 24/7 to restore the Windows PCs. CrowdStrike stated a week after the botched update that over 97 percent of the Windows sensors that were affected were back online.