Delta Air Lines is suing CrowdStrike in a bid to recoup about $500 million in estimated lost revenue months after the cybersecurity company “caused” an infamous global IT outage.

Delta, a major US airline, was among the most vocal victims of the July outage, reporting thousands of canceled flights that affected more than a million customers, and explored legal avenues to recover early losses. lost funds. hires David Boies by Boies Schiller Flexner.

Delta had to cancel approximately 7,000 flights during the five-day period of July 19-24 – a huge disruption that affected approximately 1.3 million customers and led to multiple class action lawsuits from affected passengers.

Earlier suggestions that the airline itself might seek to recover damages from CrowdStrike and Microsoft are somewhat confirmed now that a lawsuit against the former was filed Friday in a Georgia state court .

Delta claims CrowdStrike failed to properly test the Falcon sensor update, leading to widespread blue screen errors on many of its customers’ systems.

“CrowdStrike caused a global catastrophe because it cut corners, took shortcuts, and circumvented announced testing and certification processes, for its own benefit and profit,” the lawsuit says. AP News.

In response, CrowdStrike said Delta’s claims were based on false information and that the airline’s failure to modernize its outdated IT infrastructure was the main reason it took so long to recover from the outage.

“As we sought to reach a business resolution that puts customers first, Delta chose a different path,” a CrowdStrike spokesperson said in a statement sent to The register Today.

“Delta’s claims are based on misinformation, demonstrate a lack of understanding of how modern cybersecurity works, and reflect a desperate attempt to blame its slow recovery on its failure to modernize its outdated IT infrastructure.”

Regarding Delta’s allegedly aging computer kit, Microsoft made a similar accusation in answer to Delta’s threat of legal action against it in August, adding that the airline’s suggestion that Windows was complicit in the outage was “false” and “misleading.”

CrowdStrike attorney Michael B Carlinsky also previously noted that the security shop offered Delta free on-site support to help the airline return to normal service. He said Delta rejected that offer and that if the airline pursued litigation, CrowdStrike would “respond aggressively.”

Delta said this offer of help came too late, more than 65 hours after the incident began and after most of its critical systems were back online.

The airline did not immediately respond to our request for additional comment.

As Delta tries to recoup some of the lost revenue into CrowdStrike’s pockets, it also has to deal with the U.S. Department of Transportation. investigation about the incident and why it took days for the airline to recover.

Delta was by far the hardest hit airline in the United States, although other major carriers Allegiant Air, American Airlines, Frontier Airlines, Spirit Airlines and United Airlines all reported major problems.

Transportation Secretary Peter Buttigieg said at the time that the slow recovery was “unacceptable.” About 3,000 complaints have been filed against Delta, including those from people forced to sleep on airport floors while waiting for their flights to be rescheduled. ®