Back
PremiumMicrosoft Outage Highlights: Microsoft on Saturday said that CrowdStrike’s update affected 8.5 million Windows devices, or less than one percent of all Windows machines.
While the percentage was small, the broad economic and societal impacts reflect the use of CrowdStrike by enterprises that run many critical services, said Microsoft in a blog on its website.
On Friday, in one of the biggest-ever IT outages, an update of a product offered by global cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike triggered problems with Microsoft's Windows across the planet, affecting operations in several sectors.
In an official statement, the Minister of Civil Aviation Kinjarapu Rammohan Naidu said that airline systems across Indian airports have resumed normal operations since 3 AM.
However, several passengers on Saturday faced tough time as many flights were cancelled amid progress in restoring normal operations.
Crowdstrike acknowledged the issue in a recent support page where it stated that the recent crashes on Windows are related to problems with the Falcon sensor.
"Symptoms include hosts experiencing a bugcheck\blue screen error related to the Falcon Sensor. Our Engineering teams are actively working to resolve this issue and there is no need to open a support ticket." the company added.
Microsoft Outage Live: We’re working around the clock and providing ongoing updates and support. Additionally, CrowdStrike has helped us develop a scalable solution that will help Microsoft’s Azure infrastructure accelerate a fix for CrowdStrike’s faulty update. We have also worked with both AWS and GCP to collaborate on the most effective approaches, Microsoft said in a blog on Saturday.
It further added, “While software updates may occasionally cause disturbances, significant incidents like the CrowdStrike event are infrequent. We currently estimate that CrowdStrike’s update affected 8.5 million Windows devices, or less than one percent of all Windows machines. While the percentage was small, the broad economic and societal impacts reflect the use of CrowdStrike by enterprises that run many critical services."
Microsoft Outage Live: Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud on Saturday said that technological dependence had its drawbacks and cited the Microsoft outage of July 19 as a point in case.
His flight from Delhi to Madurai was nearly cancelled due to the Microsoft outage, he said.
"I am an ardent believer of the benefits of technology and yesterday we saw the adverse effects of technological dependence. After the Microsoft outage, flights all across the country were cancelled," he said after inaugurating the celebrations here to mark the 20th anniversary of the setting up of the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court.
Microsoft Outage Live: Richard Stiennon, a cybersecurity industry analyst, said this was a historic mistake by CrowdStrike.
“This is easily the worst faux pas, technical faux pas or glitch of any security software provider ever," reported AP quoting Stiennon, who has tracked the cybersecurity industry for 24 years.
While the problem is an easy technical fix, he said, it’s impact could be long-lasting for some organizations because of the hands-on work needed to fix each affected computer.
“It’s really, really difficult to touch millions of machines. And people are on vacation right now, so, you know, the CEO will be coming back from his trip to the Bahamas in a couple of weeks and he won’t be able to use his computers."
Microsoft Outage Live: Nearly six to eight flights in the domestic sector were cancelled on Saturday following the Microsoft outage that led to significant disruptions to airline operations, airport authorities said.
"About six flights in the domestic sector, including those airlines operating in Coimbatore, Kolkata, Kochi, Pune were cancelled by some airlines on Saturday. On the international route there were no cancellations and some airlines reported a delay in the departure and arrival," PTI quoted an official.
Microsoft Outage Live: Mutual fund industry AMFI on Saturday said the outage in Microsoft services impacted five asset management companies, which reported disruptions to some important functions but the issues were resolved during the day.
In a statement on Saturday, the Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI), said that all the asset management companies (AMCs), their Mutual Funds and Registrar and Transfer Agents (RTAs) functioned without any impact.
"Out of the 44 AMCs, there were 5 AMCs who reported disruptions to some important functions, which were resolved during the day and did not have any material impact on operations," it added.
Microsoft Outage Live: We understand how this issue occurred and we are doing a thorough root cause analysis to determine how this logic flaw occurred. This effort will be ongoing. We are committed to identifying any foundational or workflow improvements that we can make to strengthen our process. We will update our findings in the root cause analysis as the investigation progresses, said CrowdStrike in a blog post.
CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz said that they will continue to update findings as the investigation progresses.
Microsoft Outage Live: Reacting to disruption, Gregory Falco, an assistant professor of engineering at Cornell University said that this is a function of the very homogenous technology that goes into the backbone of all of our IT infrastructure. “What really causes this mess is that we rely on very few companies, and everybody uses the same folks, so everyone goes down at the same time, " Falco told AP.
Microsoft Outage Live: We are in the process of initiating refunds, which will reflect in your account within five days. Our reservation system is now fully restored and you may now visit our website to make your bookings, said IndiGo.
Microsoft Outage Live: Airlines are gradually coming back online on Saturday. Passenger crowds had swelled at airports on Friday to wait for news as dozens of flights were cancelled and operators struggled to keep services on track, after an update to a program operating on Microsoft Windows crashed systems worldwide.
Multiple US airlines and airports across Asia said they were now resuming operations, with check-in services restored in Hong Kong, South Korea and Thailand, and mostly back to normal in India, Indonesia and at Singapore's Changi Airport as of Saturday afternoon.
The CEO of CrowdStrike, George Kurtz stammered and had to take a gulp of water before he could form a full sentence. A video of the moment has gone viral online, reaching millions of views on the social media platform X.
The Paris Olympics organising committee said that its operations are now functioning normally. "Like a lot of organisations, we suffered this global Microsoft outage," chief organiser Tony Estanguet had said, according to French local media reports.
Elon Musk reacted to a meme shared by an X user, about Microsoft outage. The user had stated that X continued to work, while all the other applications had come to a standstill amid CrowdStrike's Falcon update.
The stock market exchanges released a joint statement on Saturday addressing the exchanges on the global outage of Microsoft systems.It stated that all stock market exchanges in India were not much affected by the outage and continued to function normally.
The Ministry of Civil Aviation announced that airline systems across airports have been functioning normally since 3 am. All issues are expected to be resolved today by 12 noon. Read here
Companies should use a multi-cloud strategy: distributing their IT infrastructure across multiple cloud service providers. This way, if one provider goes down, the others can continue to support critical operations.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said only 10 banks and non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) were affected by the global Microsoft Windows outage.While IndiGo announced that flight services and operations have resumed, passengers woes remain. Read here
Starting from finance, airlines to health: all these industries succumbed to the global outage that happened on Friday. While bankers at JPMorgan Chase & Co., Nomura Holdings Inc. and Bank of America Corp. could not login, employees across US federal agencies also faced a Windows error screen. Doctors at the UK’s National Health Service also couldn’t access scans, blood tests and patient histories, reported Bloomberg.
The CEO of CrowdStrike, George Kurtz posted a technical overview of the outage, that is currently being investigated. He said the team would continue to update the findings.
CrowdStrike's stock fell more than 11% after the global outage on Friday. The household name in cybersecurity providers that had a previously reached a market cap of about $83 billion, has now forced customers and investors to rethink. They could now look at potential rivals such as Palo Alto Networks which rose 1.7%, and SentinelOne that jumped to 3.6%, reported Reuters.
Several conspiracy theories stormed the internet, with many linking the global outage to the possibility of World War III. "I read somewhere once that ww3 (World War III) would be mostly a cyber war," one user wrote on X, reported the AFP. Many posts further linked an old WEF video that warned about the possibility of a “cyberattack with Covid-like characteristics," adding to the theory.
According to a report by Reuters, the outage raised concerns on the vulnerability of the world's interconnected technologies.Businesses also face questions about how to avoid future blackouts triggered by technology meant to safeguard their systems. The outage also raised concerns that many organizations are not well prepared to implement contingency plans when a single point of failure such as an IT system, or a piece of software within it, goes down, said the report.
Indigo has said that customers might continue to face delays, and flight disruptions. The aircraft operator requested its flyers to check flight status before heading to the airport. It had also issued a travel advisory earlier, advising customers to avoid the airport or contact centre, unless there was urgent travel need. Read Here
According to AP, in Australia, national news outlets such as public broadcaster ABC and Sky News Australia were unable to broadcast on TV and radio for several hours. Some news anchors resorted to broadcasting online from darkened offices, with computers displaying blue error screens. Internet and phone service providers were also impacted.
Moreover, in the U.S., KSHB-TV in Kansas City, Missouri, broadcast Scripps News instead of local news until approximately 5:35 AM EST., according to the station's website. IT teams and engineers worked overnight to fix the issue. Other local stations owned by Scripps experienced similar problems, but Scripps spokesman Michael Perry stated in an early Friday email that 90% of the stations managed to broadcast local news.
Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella has addressed the concerns of the tech community worldwide. In a post on X, he stated, “Yesterday, CrowdStrike released an update that began impacting IT systems globally. We are aware of this issue and are working closely with CrowdStrike and across the industry to provide customers technical guidance and support to safely bring their systems back online."
CrowdStrike Holdings Inc. announced on Friday that all Windows computers impacted by a global IT failure will need a manual reboot, reported Bloomberg. CEO George Kurtz explained in a CNBC interview that the issue stemmed from a content bug or update, which has since been rolled back, as per the wire.
He apologized to customers, noting that while some systems might take a few hours to come back online, others could take longer.
Kurtz also mentioned potential manual steps required and the company's efforts to automate those steps.
CrowdStrike's technical support team, in a communication reviewed by Bloomberg News, stated that affected systems might need up to 15 reboots.
Reuters has reported that Microsoft 365 admin center is now available, after the services were disrupted for a very long time.
Microsoft Outage Live: Actor Arjun Rampal had to book a different flight, due to a global Microsoft outage.
"Their servers are down, I don't know what has happened. I also have a ticket of another airline. I am going there," the 'Satyagraha' actor told ANI.
Microsoft Outage Live: Amid a massive global outage in Microsoft's systems, IT major Wipro CEO said that its own systems were not affected, and it is assisting clients in the US and Europe who are facing challenges.
"One, no impact to Wipro. Two, we are actually talking to the clients, trying to step up and help them because we are following the sun model -- Europe and the US -- and we are seeing the impact of cloud strike (there)... PTI quoted CEO Srinivas Pallia as saying
"...we are ramping up ourselves to help our clients," Pallia said.
Microsoft Outage Live: IT minister Vaishnaw said the MEITY is continually in touch with Microsoft, which in turn is actively working with impacted entities.
In addition, CERT-In is coordinating with CISOs of critical infrastructure entities. All impacted entities are working to bring up their systems. In many cases, systems are partially up.
Microsoft Outage Live: The RBI said the outage in Microsoft Services impacted 10 banks and NBFCs with minor disruptions, which have either been resolved or are being resolved.
"Critical systems of most banks are not in cloud and further, only a few banks are using the CrowdStrike tool. Our assessment shows that only 10 banks and NBFCs had minor disruptions which have either been resolved or are being resolved," RBI said in a statement.
Microsoft Outage Live: Over 1,390 flights have been cancelled globally so far due to the outage, and more are expected to be called off, Reuters reported, citing data from global aviation analytics firm Cirium.
Microsoft Outage Live: Passengers wait at IGI airport in Delhi after services were affected by ‘server outage’ | Watch
Microsoft Outage Live: SBI, country's largest lender, says its systems are not affected by the Microsoft global outage
Microsoft Outage Live: IndiGo cancelled over 200 flights following global IT outage that affected operation in India and abroad. The low-cost airline took to social media platform X to inform that "flights are cancelled due to the cascading effect of the worldwide travel system outage, beyond our control".
Microsoft said that it was “aware of an issue affecting Windows devices due to an update from a third-party software platform," and also that it was working to restore Azure services “as quickly as possible."
The outages weighed on several sectors, including airlines, insurers and stock exchange operators. Shares in CrowdStrike sank 20%, while Microsoft fell 2.9%.
As per a Bloomberg report, Microsoft has announced that it has resolved the root cause of a significant global tech outage that disrupted services across the globe. Despite the resolution, some Microsoft 365 applications continue to experience issues, added the report.
Minister of Civil Aviation, Rammohan Naidu says, "I have directed airport authorities and airlines to be compassionate and provide extra seating, water, and food for passengers affected by delays. We understand your concerns and are working tirelessly to ensure your safe and swift travel. Your patience and cooperation are greatly appreciated."
In a post on X, the US Federal Aviation Administration said, "The FAA is closely monitoring a technical issue impacting IT systems at US airlines. Several airlines have requested FAA assistance with ground stops until the issue is resolved."
CrowdStrike's President and CEO, George Kurtz, has addressed the widespread disruptions caused by a recent update to the company's Falcon sensor. This update has left numerous PCs stuck at the recovery screen, significantly impacting operations at airports, companies, banks, and government offices worldwide.
In a post on X, Kurtz reassured customers and stakeholders, stating, “CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts. Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted. This is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified, isolated, and a fix has been deployed."
In a cryptic post on X, Musk has taken a dig on Microsoft, saying, “Macrohard>>Microsoft."
Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in Hyderabad has issued an advisory regarding a global IT outage impacting some airlines, reported PTI. This led to the cancellation of 23 flights, including Indigo's routes to Visakhapatnam, Tirupati, Ahmedabad, and Bengaluru. Passengers are advised to contact airlines for updates.
Union IT Minister Aswini Vaishnaw confirmed that the National Informatics Centre (NIC) network remains unaffected. Users are also encouraged to check the CrowdStrike portal for the latest updates and further instructions.
Union Minister of Information and Broadcasting Aswini Viashnaw has said, “MEITY is in touch with Microsoft and its associates regarding the global outage."
Microsoft Outage Live: As the operations are disrupted across airports in India, a flyer traveling from Hyderabad receives a hand-written boarding pass.
Vistara Airline is facing technical challenges across operations, reveals on X.
As per Spectator Index, Crowdstrike shares fall over 12% in pre-market trading amid major global outages
A video shared by news agency PTI showed passengers stranded at Goa airport.
In order to get rid of Blue Screen error, Boot your windows into Safe mode or Windows recovery environment.
2) Go to C:\Windows\System32\drivers\CrowdStrike directory
3) Find the file with the name “C-00000291*.sys" and delete it
4) Boot your windows normally
According to an official Microsoft blog post, blue screen errors occur when there are serious problems that cause Windows to shut down or restart immediately. These errors can be caused by either software or hardware problems.
In this case, however, Crowdstrike has admitted that the problem in Windows is due to an update it rolled out on Friday. In a statement on its support page, the company said its engineering teams were working to resolve the issue.
The company stated, "CrowdStrike is aware of reports of crashes on Windows hosts related to the Falcon Sensor… Symptoms include hosts experiencing a bugcheck\blue screen error related to the Falcon Sensor. Our Engineering teams are actively working to resolve this issue and there is no need to open a support ticket." the company added
Moreover, according to an update posted on the Crowdstrike sub-reddit, the engineering team at CrowdStrike has now identified a way to revert the changes brought in by the update
