6-Hour Global Outage: Underlying Cause Fixed But Residual Problems Remain, Says Microsoft

New Delhi: Microsoft, which faced a massive global outage on Friday, said that the underlying cause for the issue has been fixed.

The residual impact of cybersecurity outages, however, is still affecting some Office 365 apps and services.

The global outage lasted about 6 hours, and is considered to be the biggest and most harmful ever.

A recent update of CrowdStrike – a cybersecurity software firm — has been cited as the cause of the outage, which impacted Windows-based desktops and laptops.

CrowdStrike said that a fix has been deployed for a bug that caused the global IT outage which affecting operations in airports, banks and media sector across the world.

CrowdStrike ruled out a cyberattack.

“The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed. We refer customers to the support portal for the latest updates and will continue to provide complete and continuous updates on our website,” CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz posted on X.

The bug also affected stock exchanges, supermarkets, payment apps, trading platforms, etc. as users encountered the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) error, leading to unexpected system shutdowns or restarts.

Most airlines in India faced technical issues resulting in the delay of flights at several airports. Airline officials had to check-in passengers manually.

The Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) of the Indian government issued an advisory explaining how to resolve the issue.