NEW DELHI, July 19: Microsoft has finally shared a positive update on the major global IT outage that has affected millions. The company has confirmed that the underlying cause for outage of its 365 apps and services has been fixed, but the residual impact of cyber security outages are continuing to affect some customers. This is likely to imply that the ongoing blue screen of death issue will persist for a longer period.
Amid a massive global outage that hit operations of airlines, banks and businesses across the globe, Microsoft on Friday said it was aware of the issue affecting Windows devices due to an update from a third-party software platform.
A Microsoft spokesperson said: “We anticipate a resolution is forthcoming.” “We’re aware of an issue affecting Windows devices due to an update from a third-party software platform,” the spokesperson said.
The outage put operations of businesses and systems across the globe in a state of limbo. Airport and airline operations faced significant disruptions due to the outage, with airlines issuing advisories to passengers. Several users reported disruptions on outage-tracking website Downdetector, and many took to X to vent their frustration on the ‘Blue Screen of Death’ error messages.
However, the country’s largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) said its systems were unaffected by the Microsoft global outage. Stock exchanges NSE and BSE too said they were not impacted due to the global outage of Microsoft systems. Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said the NIC network is not affected.
In a post on X, IT minister Vaishnaw said the reason for this outage has been identified and updates have been released to resolve the issue. CERT is issuing a technical advisory, he wrote.
“MEITY is in touch with Microsoft and its associates regarding the global outage… NIC network is not affected,” the minister said. Meanwhile, CERT-In has issued an advisory on the Microsoft outage caused by CrowdStrike update, and rated its severity as “critical.”
(Manas Dasgupta)
