Delta reportedly seeking potential damages from CrowdStrike, Microsoft after global IT outages
(NEW YORK) — Delta Air Lines has reportedly hired a prominent law firm to help the Atlanta-based carrier pursue potential damages from CrowdStrike and Microsoft following the global tech outages that caused a slew of internal computer issues and prompted thousands of canceled flights earlier this month.
CNBC first reported that Delta had hired Boies Schiller Flexner LLP, the law firm whose chairman David Boies previously represented the U.S. government in the landmark antitrust case against Microsoft.
Although a lawsuit has not yet been filed, CNBC reported that Delta plans to seek potential compensation from both companies.
When asked for further comment on the matter and the report that Delta had hired Boies, a spokesperson for the airline told ABC News that the company had “no information to add.”
Following the tech chaos on July 19, which affected CrowdStrike customers who use Microsoft Windows products, Delta’s systems were disrupted for more than six days, causing widespread flight delays and cancellations, service failures and an influx of frustrated, stranded passengers, which prompted an investigation by the U.S. Department of Transportation.
Crowdstrike said it deployed a fix for the faulty update on July 19, hours after the initial outage.
The IT outage resulted from a faulty software update initiated by CrowdStrike on July 19. Mark Lanterman, chief technology officer at the cybersecurity firm Computer Forensic Services, told ABC News previously that the faulty update subsequently caused a meltdown within Windows operating systems.
“The CrowdStrike update is deep inside the operating system,” Lanterman said. “When that was installed, there was bad code inside of this update. And when Windows came across the bad code, it panicked and it crashed.”
According to a statement from Delta earlier this week, “Upward of half of Delta’s IT systems worldwide are Windows-based.”
On Thursday, Delta announced that “operational reliability [had] returned to normal” across mainline and Delta Connection flights.
“Delta is committed to caring for our customers during this time and has taken a number of other steps to make things right for customers affected by delays and cancellations,” the company said in an announcement.
Those steps included reimbursing out-of-pocket expenses, extended delay refunds, issuing SkyMiles Program miles and travel vouchers, notifying customers of rebooking options, and extending a travel waiver for all customers with travel booked from July 19-28.
According to CNBC, the outages reportedly cost Delta between an estimated $350 million and $500 million.
CrowdStrike and Microsoft did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump told the audience at a cryptocurrency conference in Nashville, Tennessee, over the weekend that he wants to turn the U.S. into the “crypto capital of the planet.”
The remarks thrust digital currency into the forefront of a presidential campaign in which both major candidates are seeking to draw contrasts on hot-button issues. The political attention comes during an upswing for bitcoin, the most popular cryptocurrency, which has surged 60% in value this year.
Trump, who opposed crypto as president, has recently undertaken a campaign blitz in support of digital assets. By contrast, likely Democratic nominee Kamala Harris has remained quiet on the issue since President Biden ended his reelection bid more than a week ago and endorsed the vice president in his place.
“This is a really live issue,” Aaron Klein, a senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institute, told ABC News, pointing to key constituencies that disproportionately trade cryptocurrency, such as young voters.
In response to ABC News’ request for comment, the Trump campaign touted the candidate’s support for crypto and the wider tech industry.
“As the Bitcoin conference demonstrated, President Trump wants our nation to regain the global lead for technology, innovation, and manufacturing. That includes crypto and other sectors,” senior adviser Brian Hughes told ABC News in a statement. “Crypto innovators and others in the technology sector are under attack from Kamala Harris and the Democrats who’ve placed obstacles and unnecessary burdens in the way of our nation’s next generation of industry leaders.”
The Biden campaign did not immediately respond to an ABC News request for comment on the issue.
Here’s what to know about where Trump and Harris stand on cryptocurrency:
Where does former President Donald Trump stand on cryptocurrency?
While in office, Trump sharply criticized crypto. In 2019, he derided digital assets in a post on X as “highly volatile and based on thin air.”
“Unregulated Crypto Assets can facilitate unlawful behavior, including drug trade,” Trump added.
Lately, however, Trump has voiced full-throated support for crypto. Speaking at the annual Bitcoin Conference on Saturday, Trump vowed to ease regulation of cryptocurrency and establish the federal government’s first National Strategic Bitcoin Reserve.
Trump also said he would replace Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler, who many crypto proponents dislike for his robust approach to crypto regulation.
“Trump seems to have had a change of heart and is going all-in on crypto,” Eswar Prasad, a professor at Cornell University who studies digital assets, told ABC News.
In recent weeks, Trump has received endorsements from some major figures in Silicon Valley who back crypto, including Tesla CEO Elon Musk, a prominent crypto supporter. Other Trump supporters include Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, billionaire crypto entrepreneurs who gained prominence in the early 2000s after suing Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
In a post on X on Monday, Cameron Winklevoss said, “We’re going to make America and Bitcoin greater than ever before.”
Prasad said Trump’s about-face on crypto aligns with his effort to appeal to Silicon Valley donors and signal a deregulatory approach toward business.
“He seems to view the crypto industry as a source of financing for this campaign and also as lining up with his anti-big government message,” Prasad said.
It remains difficult to discern exactly where Harris stands on crypto, experts told ABC News.
Where does Vice President Kamala Harris stand on cryptocurrency?
The Biden administration has been widely perceived as tough on crypto, they noted, citing the federal prosecution of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried and cryptocurrency regulations enforced by Gensler. However, experts told ABC News, it isn’t clear how closely Harris intends to align herself with Biden on the issue.
Democrats are divided over crypto policy, said Klein, of the Brookings Institute. Progressive Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., has been a forceful critic of crypto, for instance, while tech entrepreneur and Harris supporter Mark Cuban has sought a friendlier stance on digital assets, Klein noted.
“The Democratic party has a split,” Klein said.
Harris ultimately may seek to soften the Biden administration’s position on cryptocurrency, experts said. The Harris campaign has contacted top crypto firms in an effort to “reset” relations between the industry and the Democratic Party, the Financial Times reported on Saturday.
“I suspect Harris’s campaign will have some level of strategic ambiguity between the Biden administration’s line and what the cryptocurrency industry wants,” Klein told ABC News.
(NEW YORK) — For the first time in its history, Instagram on Tuesday announced the launch of accounts designed specifically for teenage users with built-in privacy protections.
The new accounts, called “Teen Accounts,” will be automatic for all Instagram users under the age of 18, both for teens already using the app and for those signing up.
By default, Instagram users younger than 16 will need a parent’s permission to change their account settings.
The changes — expected to impact tens of millions of users — were announced by Instagram head Adam Mosseri in a live interview on ABC News’ Good Morning America.
“They’re an automatic set of protections for teens that try to proactively address the top concerns that we’ve heard from parents about teens online,” Mosseri said on GMA. “Things like who can contact them, what content they see and how much time they spend on their device … all without requiring any involvement from the parent.”
Mosseri said the rollout of Teen Accounts starts Tuesday with new users signing up for the app, while existing teen users will see their accounts switch to the new Teen Accounts model within 60 days.
Among the changes put in place by Instagram include a new privacy setting that, by default, places all teen users in private accounts. In order to switch to a public account, teens under age 16 will need a parent’s permission.
Under the private account setting, teens will need to accept new followers and only people whom they accept as followers can see their content and interact with them.
In addition, teen users will now automatically only be able to message with people they follow, or are already connected to, and parents will have a new tool in their settings that allows them to see with whom their teen has recently been messaging.
With the new accounts, teens will have the power to choose the age-appropriate topics they want to see more of on Instagram, like sports or art, and parents will also be able to see the topics their teens choose.
In order to limit the amount of time spent on Instagram, all Teen Accounts will be placed in “sleep mode” between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m., while parents can also adjust their child’s time settings — including limiting access completely overnight — in the parental supervision tool.
Another change for Teen Accounts is that they will automatically be placed in more restrictive content settings, which will limit the content they see in search functions like Reels or Explore from accounts they don’t follow, according to Instagram.
Antigone Davis, vice president and global head of safety for Meta, the parent company of Instagram, told GMA the company is also implementing new ways to verify users’ ages.
“We are building technology to try to identify if you’ve lied about your age and then move you into those stricter settings,” Davis said. “This is a challenging area for industry, which is why, on top of building that technology that will try to identify age liars and put them into those protective settings, we also will have moments where, if we get a strong signal, we will ask you to age verify.”
Davis said that parents will be able to monitor their teens’ account and adjust their settings from their own Instagram accounts.
“The idea is to really make it simpler, so they [parents] have their own center that they can go and look and see what the privacy setting is for their teen,” she said.
Changes spurred by parents and teens
The changes for teen Instagram users come amid mounting evidence showing the dangers of social media for young users.
Social media use is linked with symptoms of depression and anxiety, body image issues, and lower life satisfaction for some teens and adolescents, research shows. Heavy social media use around the time adolescents go through puberty is linked with lower life satisfaction one year later, one large study found.
U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy, who previously issued an advisory highlighting a crisis in youth mental health, has said he believes being on social media “does a disservice” to kids early in their teen years. Noting the crisis among kids, the American Psychological Association last year issued the first guidance of its kind to help teens use social media safely.
In January, while testifying at a Senate hearing, Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, publicly apologized to parents, caregivers and loved ones of young people who they say were harmed due to social media use, telling them, “It’s terrible. No one should have to go through the things that your families have suffered.”
In his apology, Zuckerberg also emphasized Meta’s efforts on safety, adding, “This is why we invest so much and are going to continue doing industry-leading efforts to make sure that no one has to go through the things your families have had to suffer.”
Davis said the newly-announced changes to Instagram for teen users came after conversations with parents and teenagers around the world.
She said the company focused on making it simpler for parents to know how, when, and with whom their teens are engaging on Instagram.
“We’ve had these incremental changes along the way as we’ve been working back and forth with parents and experts,” Davis said of previous safety changes for teen users. “What we’re really trying to do here is standardize a lot of this approach.”
She added of the new features, “There are these broad protections that we have in place, and if your teen wants to change them, and they’re under the age of 16, they have to come to you for permission, they’ve got to invite you in. It’s just a different way of thinking about things.”
Parents and caregivers as well as teens can learn more about Teen Accounts by visiting Instagram.com/teenaccounts.
(NEW YORK) — As more consumers reach for generic labels to save on money groceries, M&M’s maker Mars is spending big bucks on a new acquisition to gain even more shelf space in the snack aisle.
The candy bar giant, known for brands such as Snickers and Twix, is gearing up to purchase global snacking company Kellanova in an all-cash deal valued at $35.9 billion, which will add well-known packaged foods like Eggo, Pop-Tarts and Pringles to its portfolio.
The family-owned, Virginia-based company announced the deal with the multinational food manufacturer — formerly known as the Kellogg Company — in joint press releases on Wednesday, marking one of the largest CPG mergers in years.
“Mars will acquire all outstanding equity of Kellanova for $83.50 per share in cash,” the release stated. “All of Kellanova’s brands, assets and operations, including its snacking brands, portfolio of international cereal and noodles, North American plant-based foods and frozen breakfast are included in the transaction.”
The deal is expected to close in the first half of next year. Upon completion, Kellanova will become part of Mars Snacking, which is led by Global President Andrew Clarke.
Kellanova, which was spun off from the Kellogg Co. last fall when it officially split up into two different companies, also includes other popular consumer brands such as Cheez-Its, Rice Krispies Treats, MorningStar Farms, NutriGrain and RXBAR. The Chicago-based company reported more than $13 billion in net sales in 2023.
Privately owned Mars, which also has a pet food and veterinary care arm in addition to its confectionery business, previously expanded its scope beyond sweets when it bought healthy snack brand KIND North America for $5 billion in 2020.
Poul Weihrauch, CEO of Mars, Inc. called the forthcoming deal “a substantial opportunity for Mars to further develop a sustainable snacking business that is fit for the future.”
“We will honor the heritage and innovation behind Kellanova’s incredible snacking and food brands while combining our respective strengths to deliver more choice and innovation to consumers and customers,” his statement continued.
Steve Cahillane, chairman, president and CEO of Kellanova, added that the “historic combination” of companies was both a “cultural and strategic fit.”
Boasting the “attractive purchase price” of the all-cash transaction, Cahillane said the move “creates new and exciting opportunities for our employees, customers, and suppliers,” stating he’s “confident Mars is a natural home for the Kellanova brands and employees.”
The sweet-meets-salty food merger resembles a similar strategy from competitor The Hershey Company, which added SkinnyPop with the $1.6 billion buyout of Amplify Snack Brands Inc. in 2017, followed by Dot’s Pretzels in 2021.