Delta sues CrowdStrike for $500 million in damages, claims "cutting corners" caused infamous July outage

By Nicole Kobie for IT PRO
Monday, October 28, 2024

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If the case goes to court, Delta faces a tough challenging proving CrowdStrike should pay damages, according to Dr. Ilia Kolochenko, CEO of ImmuniWeb and cybersecurity practice lead at Platt Law LLP.

"Based on publicly available information about the CrowdStrike incident, it would be an arduous task to prove negligence in this case," said Kolochenko.

"It will probably be a fierce battle of expert witnesses, who will make a lot of money arguing about the applicable standard of care, requisite to test updates of cybersecurity software. Having said this, the negligence claim – and especially punitive damages – rather seem to be a long shot with little to no chances to succeed."

However, Kolochenko believes it makes more sense for both sides to settle the case out of court, as it will be difficult for Delta to prove and CrowdStrike won't want to set a precedent of liability in such instances.

“If parties fail to settle at an early stage and the case is not dismissed, eventually arriving to the discovery stage of trial, new and grossly unfavorable evidence [may] turn up, eventually giving the negligence claim a chance." Read Full Article