The Microsoft cloud was hit by a massive global outage on Friday, with users from across the world reporting problems on their systems, the most common being the blue screen issue. Operations of several airliners were also affected across countries while the Microsoft global outage also hit supermarkets and banking ops.
Microsoft 365, cloud-powered productivity powered by Microsoft, allows users to employ the features of Microsoft Office software in their business and company-related works.
Up to 11:31 am, according to Down Detector -- outage detecting platform -- 391 reports of Microsoft outage were recorded, with 56 per cent facing problems with login, 23 per cent facing app problems and 21 per cent with One Drive.
CROWDSTRIKE'S RESPONSE
Commenting on the global outage, George Kurtz, the CEO of Cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike, said, "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", as per BBC.
"We refer customers to the support portal for the latest updates and will continue to provide complete and continuous updates on our website. We further recommend organisations ensure they’re communicating with Crowdstrike representatives through official channels', he further added.
AIRLINE OPS AFFECTED
Frontier had asked to pause the airline's departures across the United States, CNN reported citing the Federal Aviation Administration.
As many as 131 flights were cancelled Thursday (local time) while 223 others were delayed, meaning that 30 per cent of the overall flights were affected, as per FlightAware, a flight data tracker.
Allegiant Air and SunCountry airline also said that their websites were having some difficulties. "Due to a global outage at a third party vendor, our booking, check-in, and trip-managing capabilities are temporarily unavailable," the latter said on its website.
Akasa Air's services have also been hit by this global outage. Sharing a travel update on X, the airline said, "Due to infrastructure issues with our service provider, some of our online services, including booking, check-in and manage booking services will be temporarily unavailable."
At present, manual check-in and boarding processes are being done at the airports, the airline said, requesting passengers with immediate travel plans to reach the airport early to check-in at the 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," Akasa Air added.
BLUE SCREENS, RESTART LOOPS: USERS
Several users took to microblogging site X to show their blue laptop screens as the outage took over their work schedule. One of the users wrote, "Windows Crashed...! It seems everyone around the globe facing this issue.. wahhhh please don't resolve Take ur own time @Microsoft".
Another user shared his blue screen and said, "Windows 10 in continuous restart loop". In a light manner, another X user wrote, "Although, no information suggesting hack behind outage."
People shared every other corporate employees' dream and said, "Logging off from work cause of Microsoft outages." Another said, "Happy Weekend! Thank You!"
Several users mentioned CrowdStrike, the first cloud-native platform that protects endpoints and cloud workloads, identity and data and urged it to fix the issue.
One of the users wrote, "Latest #Crowdstrike update seems to be pushing machines into a BSOD loop. Major outages around the globe."
WHAT MICROSOFT SAID
As the outage hit users across the globe, Microsoft took to X and said, "We're investigating an issue impacting users ability to access various Microsoft 365 apps and services."
It had said that it is focused on redirecting the impacted traffic to healthy systems. "We're still observing a positive trend in service availability while we continue to redirect the impacted traffic," it said.
Microsoft said that it expects that users will continue to see gradual relief as they continue to mitigate the issue.
Microsoft spokesperson addressed the global outage and said that the company is aware of the issue affecting Windows device due to the update from "third-party software".
"We anticipate a resolution is forthcoming," the spokesperson added.
CERT-In ISSUES ADVISORY
The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) has issued an advisory in the wake of Microsoft Windows outage.
"It has been reported that Windows hosts related to Crowd Strike agent 'Falcon Sensor' are facing outages and getting crashed due to recent update received in the product. The concerned windows hosts are experiencing a 'Blue Screen of Death (BSOD)' related to Falcon Sensor," the advisory read.
CERT-In noted that the latest update of CrowdStrike has been reverted by the Crowd Strike Team. It also provided steps for those who are still facing issues to stay online:
Boot Windows into Safe Mode or the Windows Recovery Environment
Navigate to the C:\Windows\System32\drivers\CrowdStrike directory
Locate the file matching "C-00000291*.sys", and delete it
Boot the host normally
"Also, users are advised to check the latest updates from Crowd Strike portal," CERT-In added.
