Microsoft outage: How a faulty update took airlines, banks offline
A significant Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) issue has impacted thousands of Microsoft's Windows machines globally, causing major disruptions in various sectors all over the world. The problem, traced back to a faulty update from cybersecurity provider CrowdStrike, is causing affected PCs and servers to enter a recovery boot loop and fail to start properly. This prevents them from starting properly, leading to widespread outages in banking, airlines, TV broadcasting and supermarkets.
Faulty update triggers global outages
The first reports of the issue originated from Australian banks, airlines, and TV broadcasters as their machines began to go offline. The problem has since spread globally. UK broadcaster Sky News was unable to broadcast its morning news bulletins due to the problem. All flights from Delta, United, and American Airlines are grounded due to a "communication issue." In India, Akasa Airlines stated, "Some of our online services, including booking, check-in, and manage booking services will be temporarily unavailable."
CrowdStrike acknowledges faulty update
CrowdStrike acknowledged the issue in a support note, stating, "We have widespread reports of BSODs on Windows hosts, occurring on multiple sensor versions." The company has identified and reverted the faulty update. However, this action does not seem to help machines that have already been impacted by the problem. Separately, Microsoft experienced a global service outage today, impacting millions of users worldwide. The outage affected various Microsoft 365 applications and services, including Outlook, Teams, OneDrive, and SharePoint.
IT administrators grapple with widespread problems
In a Reddit thread discussing the issue, hundreds of IT administrators reported widespread problems related to the BSOD issue. "Our entire company is offline" said one Reddit poster, while another stated "70% of their laptops are down and stuck in a boot loop." The suggested workaround involves booting affected Windows machines into safe mode and deleting a system file in the CrowdStrike directory. However, this solution could prove challenging for cloud-based servers or remote Windows laptops.
