Microsoft is confirming CrowdStrike’s version of events, saying CrowdStrike repeatedly turned down offers of help from Microsoft, including CEO Satya Nadella.

Multiple industries were impacted when CrowdStrike pushed a faulty update to its cybersecurity software that bricked millions of Windows PCs. Because CrowdStrike’s software runs at the kernel level, bringing the computers online required phyiscal access. Although multiple airlines were impacted, Delta was affected far worse, at a cost of $500 million and some 5,000 canceled flights.

Delta and CrowdStrke Trade Barbs

Delta CEO Ed Bastian said his company was considering a lawsuit to recover some of its losses.

“We’re not looking to wipe out these companies, but we are looking for fair compensation and assurances that this won’t happen again,” Bastian said last week.

CrowdStrike was quick to fire back, saying that Delta was to blame for the extra issues it enountered, versus its competitors, since it refused help from CrowdStrike.

“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,” wrote Michael Carlinsky, an attorney representing the cybersecurity firm, in a letter to Delta.

Microsoft’s Response

Delta was quick to point the blame at Microsoft as well. Delta’s attorney, David Boies, wrote in a July 29 letter: “We have reason to believe Microsoft has failed to comply with contractual requirements and otherwise acted in a grossly negligent, indeed willful, manner in connection with the Faulty Update.”

Microsoft has now weighed in, supporting CrowdStrike’s telling of events. According to CNBC, attorney Mark Cheffo, a Dechert partner, sent a letter to Delta on behalf of Microsoft.

“Our preliminary review suggests that Delta, unlike its competitors, apparently has not modernized its IT infrastructure, either for the benefit of its customers or for its pilots and flight attendants,” Cheffo wrote.

Cheffo also said Microsoft repeatedly offered Delta help that the airline declined. In fact, Microsoft employees reached out to Detal every day from July 19 to July 23. Nadella even tried reaching out to Bastian, but never received a reply, the same thing that happened when CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz tried contacting Bastian.

Cheffo cited one of Microsoft’s attempts to help Delta in the form of a letter on July 22, in which a Delta employee responded: “All good. Cool will let you know and thank you.”

According to CNBC, evidence is also mounting that Delta has been diversifying the platforms it relies on since 2021, using IBM and even picking AWS as its preferred cloud provider. That point was directly addressed in Cheffo’s letter to the airline.

“It is rapidly becoming apparent that Delta likely refused Microsoft’s help because the IT system it was most having trouble restoring — its crew-tracking and scheduling system — was being serviced by other technology providers, such as IBM, because it runs on those providers’ systems, and not Microsoft Windows or Azure,” Cheffo wrote in his letter.

Conclusion

There is clearly some reason why Delta’s recovery from the CrowdStrike outage was fraught with far more difficulties than its rivals. Whatever that cause may be, it is increasingly looking like it may not have been for any lack of effort on the part of Microsoft or CrowdStrike.

In fact, Delta’s troubled recovery may well have been the result of decisions made by Delta personnel across the entire company, up to an including CEO Ed Bastian himself.