Microsoft outage hits banks, airlines and other businesses in India, worldwide

Multiple sectors faced disruptions on Friday due to a technical failure involving Microsoft and cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. The outage affected businesses not only in India but also in Australia, Germany, the United States, and the UK.

Reports indicate that millions of Microsoft Windows users encountered the "Blue Screen of Death" (BSOD), which can cause abrupt system restarts and potential loss of unsaved data.

Microsoft attributed the issue to a "configuration change" in its Azure backend, disrupting connections between storage and compute resources and impacting Microsoft 365 services.

Despite ongoing improvements and mitigation efforts, several Indian airlines, including Air India, Indigo, Akasa Air, and SpiceJet, reported delays due to the outage. Users also struggled to access Microsoft apps like Microsoft 365, Microsoft Teams, and Microsoft Azure.

According to the outage tracking website Downdetector, some users also complained that they were facing issues while using the following apps: Instagram, Amazon, Gmail, State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, Bank of India, and HDFC Bank, to name a few.

The disruption extended globally, affecting payment systems in Australian stores and impacting financial institutions such as the National Australia Bank. In the US, airlines like United, Delta, and American Airlines grounded flights, while Sydney Airport saw delays and cancellations. Issues were also reported at Tokyo-Narita Airport and across European airports, with Ryanair warning of potential disruptions. The London Stock Exchange reported normal operations but faced challenges with its news service.

Experts believe that the outage stemmed from an update to CrowdStrike's Falcon Sensor, a product designed to protect endpoints, which malfunctioned and conflicted with Windows systems.

CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz however clarified that this was not a cyber-attack and acknowledged that the issue has been contained, and customers were advised to check official channels for updates. Microsoft also announced the Azure outage was resolved, it highlighted the risks associated with heavy reliance on cloud services, affecting numerous industries.

Omer Grossman, cyber-security firm CyberArk's CIO, noted the significant economic impact of such outages and the complexity of restoring services, as endpoints experiencing BSOD require manual intervention for recovery.

Sundareshwar K, Partner & Leader - Cybersecurity, PwC India, stressed the event's focus on the need to protect entities from risks.. He pointed out that simply implementing advanced technology does not guarantee security and business continuity. Instead, organizations should reevaluate risks and focus on establishing a strong cyber architecture with additional measures to promote resilience in the face of unexpected technological challenges or failures.

Recent statistics show a trend of increasing tech outages, with over 180 global incidents in 2023 compared to 150 in 2022. Notable outages have included Microsoft services, Virgin Media, AWS, Slack, and others. A June 2023 incident with Microsoft Azure was further confirmed that it was a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack. 

According to New Relic, the median annual cost of tech outages in India is $62.79 million, with almost half of respondents indicating that critical app outages cost over $500,000 per hour of downtime.