CrowdStrike outage: Delta Air Lines hires high-profile attorney seeking damages
Delta Air Lines has engaged the services of high-profile attorney David Boies, in a bid to seek damages from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike and tech giant Microsoft. This move comes after a significant Microsoft outage earlier this month, that led to the crash of millions of computers and caused thousands of flight cancellations. Following the news of Boies's involvement, CrowdStrike shares experienced a 5% dip in extended trading.
Outage's impact on Delta and CrowdStrike's market value
The software update from CrowdStrike on July 19, triggered a historic outage of Microsoft systems, disrupting numerous industries. The airline industry was particularly hard hit with Delta experiencing widespread flight disruptions and service failures. In the aftermath of this incident, CrowdStrike's market value plunged by nearly 25% in just two trading days, due to concerns about the company's future.
Compensation claim and Boies's legal prowess
The US Department of Transportation is currently investigating Delta's response to the outage. Although no lawsuit has been filed yet, Delta plans to seek compensation from both Microsoft and CrowdStrike for an incident that reportedly cost the airline between $350 million and $500 million. Boies, a prominent figure in the legal world, is known for representing the US government, in its landmark antitrust case against Microsoft among other high-profile cases.
Delta grapples with refund requests
Delta is currently dealing with more than 176,000 refund or reimbursement requests after nearly 7,000 flights were canceled due to the system outage. Insurance start-up Parametrix has estimated that the CrowdStrike incident caused a total loss of $5.4 billion for Fortune 500 companies, excluding Microsoft. So far, Delta has not responded to requests for comment on their decision to seek damages from CrowdStrike as well as Microsoft.
