A major Microsoft outage caused widespread chaos on Friday, impacting computer systems worldwide. The disruption grounded flights, crippled banks and stock exchanges, and hindered payment systems and emergency services.
Microsoft acknowledged the outage after roughly six hours and reported “improvements in availability” due to their efforts. However, even after fixing the underlying cause, residual effects continued to affect some Office 365 functionalities.
The culprit behind the outage is suspected to be a faulty update in Crowdstrike Falcon, an antivirus software used by Microsoft Windows. Disruptions persisted despite Microsoft claiming to have resolved the issue.
Both Microsoft and Crowdstrike denied any malicious cyberattack, attributing the outage to a recent update within the security platform.
The impact of the outage was significant in India, causing extensive disruptions in air travel, financial transactions, and trading activities. Flight delays and long queues plagued airports as crucial booking and check-in systems malfunctioned for airlines like IndiGo, Akasa, and SpiceJet.
CrowdStrike: The Antivirus That Caused a Global Headache
CrowdStrike, a leading cybersecurity company, offers protection against cyberattacks through its software, Falcon Sensor. However, on Thursday, things went awry. A bug in a recent Falcon Sensor update caused a major issue: Windows systems were crashing with Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) errors.
Even though CrowdStrike rolled back the faulty update, many devices are still experiencing the problem.