Daijiworld Media Network - New Delhi
New Delhi, Jul 19: A major disruption caused by a new Crowdstrike update has resulted in a massive global outage for Windows 10 users, while a separate issue with Microsoft's cloud services has affected airlines worldwide, including in India.
Windows 10 users hit by Crowdstrike update
Windows 10 users globally are facing significant outages due to a new Crowdstrike update, which has led to PCs getting stuck on the recovery screen. Many users have reported seeing the Blue Screen of Death error messages, affecting banking institutions, supermarkets, and media companies in the United States. This issue has disrupted operations in TV studios and radio stations, leaving some offline.
Cybersecurity software firm Crowdstrike has reported blue screens of death and is currently investigating the cause. Several large multinational companies in India have also reported similar problems across their facilities, with computer users experiencing the issue on Windows-based desktops and laptops.
One social media user wrote, “Something super weird happening right now: just been called by several totally different media outlets in the last few minutes, all with Windows machines suddenly BSoD’ing (Blue Screen of Death). Anyone else seen this? Seems to be entering recovery mode.”
Microsoft cloud services outage affects airlines
A significant disruption in Microsoft's cloud services has led to flight cancellations and delays across the world, including India. The outage has affected several airlines, grounding planes and disrupting flight operations at Delhi and Mumbai airports.
Airlines' responses to outage
Akasa Airlines announced that some of its online services would be temporarily unavailable at the Mumbai and Delhi airports due to infrastructure issues with their service provider. The airline stated, "Currently, we are following manual check-in and boarding processes at the airports and hence request passengers with immediate travel plans to reach the airport early to check in at our counters. We sincerely regret the inconvenience caused and want to assure you that our teams are working with our service provider to resolve the same at the earliest.”
SpiceJet also issued a statement, "We're currently facing a technical issue in providing updates on flight disruptions. Our team is actively working to resolve this issue. We regret any inconvenience caused and will update you once the issue is resolved. Thank you for your patience and cooperation."
Global aviation impact
In the United States, Frontier Airlines was significantly impacted, grounding flights for over two hours due to issues with Microsoft's services. Frontier later resumed operations, lifting a nationwide pause on departures. The outage also impacted reservations and bookings. US-based Allegiant Air and Sun Country Airlines Holdings Inc faced similar disruptions, with both airlines reporting issues with reservations and bookings and working on resolving these problems.
Microsoft reported that its outage started at about 6 pm ET, affecting a subset of its customers with multiple Azure services in the Central US region.