New Delhi: Microsoft users globally, several in India, have reported massive outages in services, with outage tracking website Downdetector showing users flagging disruptions across various services.
Globally, the Microsoft cloud outage led to US airlines cancelling flights, but the tech giant later reportedly said its cloud services outage in the Central US region has been resolved.
A new Crowdstrike (cybersecurity software firm) update is being cited as the cause of the outage, which has impacted Windows-based desktop and laptops.
Microsoft, crowdstrike and Windows are trending on X (formerly Twitter).
On outage tracking website Downdetector, users reported problems across Microsoft line-up including Azure, and Teams.
Microsoft said it is investigating the issue “impacting users ability to access various Microsoft 365 apps and services”.
“Our services are still seeing continuous improvements while we continue to take mitigation actions,” according to Microsoft 365 Status post on X.
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. IndiGo, SpiceJet and Akasa saw disruptions in their online check-in and boarding processes across their networks, forcing them to switch to manual mode.
Several users reported disruptions on outage-tracking website Downdetector, and many took to X (now twitter) to vent their frustration on the ‘Blue Screen of Death’ error messages.
However, stock exchanges NSE and BSE said they are not impacted due to the global outage of Microsoft systems. Indian banks and payments systems were unaffected by the Microsoft outage, which has impacted financial services players worldwide.
“We are all fine,” SBI Chairman Dinesh Kumar Khara told PTI when asked about the impact of the outage on the operations at the country’s largest lender which commands nearly 25 per cent market share.
National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) chief executive Dilip Asbe said the country’s payments architecture, including the widely popular Unified Payments Interface, has been unaffected.
HDFC Bank, the biggest among the private sector lenders, also said that it has not faced any impact of the outage.
“Our systems are unaffected by the global outage. There is no impact on banking operations,” said Ramesh Lakshminarayanan, the group head for information technology at HDFC Bank.
Officials at ICICI Bank and Axis Bank also said that their systems were working fine and showing no impact of the outage.
Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said that IT ministry is in touch with Microsoft regarding global outage, and added that NIC network is not affected.
In a post on X, IT minister Vaishnaw said that 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”.
PNN & Agencies