A Georgia state judge ruled that Delta Airlines can pursue many of the claims it has against computer security firm CrowdStrike, which was at the centre of a massive Microsoft Windows outage last summer that crashed computers worldwide and caused thousands of flight cancellations.
Judge Kelly Lee Ellerbe of the Fulton County Superior Court ruled on Friday that Delta can proceed with its claim that CrowdStrike was grossly negligent in sending out a faulty update of its Falcon software to customers.
The update crashed more than 8 million Windows systems worldwide and led to 7,000 flight cancellations at Delta alone.
‘Gross negligence’
The judge noted that Delta’s case argues that if CrowdStrike had tested the July update “on one computer” before its deployment, the error would have been detected.
“As CrowdStrike has acknowledged, its own president publicly stated CrowdStrike did something ‘horribly wrong’,” the Atlanta judge wrote.
She also allowed Delta to pursue a claim of computer trespass and a narrowed claim that CrowdStrike fraudulently promised not to introduce an unauthorised back door into Delta’s systems.
CrowdStrike said on Monday that it was confident the judge would find the case had no merit or would limit damages to the low millions of dollars under the law in Georgia, where Delta is based.
Delta sued Austin, Texas-based CrowdStrike last October, stating at the time in a securities filing that the disruption was “unacceptable”.
The company traded barbs with Microsoft and CrowdStrike over the issue after disruption at Delta lasted for days, even after other airlines appeared to have restored services.
Disruption
Attorney Mark Cheffo, a legal partner representing Microsoft, claimed at the time that Delta had “apparently has not modernised its IT infrastructure” unlike other airlines, while a CrowdStrike representative said Delta was promoting a “misleading narrative”.
CrowdStrike’s faulty update triggered a worldwide outage – except in countries including China and Russia – that crashed an estimated 8.5 million Windows computers and disrupted airlines, banks, hospitals, emergency lines and business operations.
Delta said the airline was facing a cost of up to $500 million (£392m) due to flight cancellations.
The carrier is also facing an investigation from the US Department of Transportation and a class-action lawsuit over claims of poor customer service over compensation.
