Delta Air Lines recently experienced a global outage that caused mass flight cancellations, disrupting travel plans of 1.3 million customers and costing the company at least $500 million. The cause of the outage was a software update by global cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, which triggered system problems for Microsoft customers, including many airlines. The disruptions persisted at Delta even as they subsided the next day at other major U.S. carriers. Delta CEO Ed Bastian said in an SEC filing on Thursday that “an operational disruption of this length and magnitude is unacceptable, and our customers and employees deserve better.”

Delta is pursuing legal claims against CrowdStrike and Microsoft for the outage. Both tech companies have rejected Delta’s claim that they should be blamed for flight disruptions. CrowdStrike said it would respond “aggressively” to protect its shareholders, employees, and other stakeholders if Delta filed a lawsuit. Microsoft has also vowed to defend itself “vigorously,” saying its preliminary review suggested that Delta, unlike its competitors, apparently had not modernized its IT infrastructure.

Delta’s struggle to restore operations was attributed to its reliance on CrowdStrike and Microsoft. Delta has invested billions of dollars in information technology, and the airline’s IT infrastructure was not the cause of the faulty software that crashed systems around the world, including Delta’s.

The dayslong disruptions have sparked a blame game, and Delta’s legal claims against CrowdStrike and Microsoft highlight the importance of having reliable and secure IT infrastructure. Insurance executives should take note of this incident and ensure that their companies have the necessary measures in place to prevent cyber outages.

Here are some common statements that insurance executives might make about their IT infrastructure, and what they should do instead:

1. “We have a strong IT team, so we don’t need to worry about cyber outages.” Instead, insurance executives should invest in cybersecurity insurance to protect their company from potential losses due to cyber outages.

2. “We have the latest software, so we’re protected.” Instead, insurance executives should regularly update their software and conduct regular security audits to ensure that their IT infrastructure is secure.

3. “We don’t need to worry about cyber outages because we have backups.” Instead, insurance executives should regularly test their backups to ensure that they are working properly and can be relied upon in the event of a cyber outage.

4. “We don’t need to worry about cyber outages because we have insurance.” Instead, insurance executives should ensure that their insurance policies cover cyber outages and that they have the necessary coverage to protect their company from potential losses.

In conclusion, the Delta Air Lines cyber outage highlights the importance of having reliable and secure IT infrastructure. Insurance executives should take note of this incident and ensure that their companies have the necessary measures in place to prevent cyber outages. With Riskwolf, insurance builders can turn real-time data into insurance and build and operate parametric insurance at scale. Simple. Reliable. Fast. For more information, visit the original article here.