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MS update makes world go awry
Chaos at airports as computer outage hits airline check-in
Hard facts of outage:
What: Widespread IT outage causing 'Blue Screen Of Death' error messages
When: Early morning on July 19, continued for hours afterwards
About 'Update': Using a single sensor and unified threat interface, Falcon Identity Threat Protection stops indentity-driven breaches in real time
Impacted: Microsoft users globally; flights, banks, hospitals, media outlets & other companies
What went wrong: Faulty update was caused by crowdStrike's Falcon Sensor to malfunction and conflict with the Windows system
New Delhi/Mumbai: Airports across the country witnessed chaotic scenes on Friday after dozens of flights were either delayed or cancelled after a widespread global computer outage that also hit operations like cash withdrawal at some banks, and impacted functioning of some brokerages.
In one of the biggest-ever IT outages, an update of a product offered by global cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike triggered problems with Microsoft's Windows across the planet, hitting operations at financial sector companies and airlines while hospital operations got postponed and some television channels went off air.
In India, it led to crashing of airline check-in systems, causing delays and cancellation of dozens of flights. IndiGo alone cancelled around 200
flights. Hundreds of other flights got delayed as bookings, check-in and boarding moved to manual mode.
Airports from Chennai to Delhi witnessed chaotic scenes as harried passengers argued with airline staff over either not informing about delays and cancellations or not giving them alternate flights. Web check-in services were not available, leading to long queues at check-in counters and over-crowded lounges at several airports.
IndiGo, Akasa Air, Vistara, Air India, SpiceJet and Air India Express posted messages on X saying they were facing issues. Passengers were issued hand-written boarding passes and the entire process of doing manual ticketing as well as passenger and luggage check-in took 30-40 minutes per person, some travellers said.
According to preliminary data put out by aviation analytics firm Cirium on the global IT disruption in the afternoon, 56 out of 3,652 flights scheduled from Indian destinations were cancelled.
Union Civil Aviation Minister Rammohan Naidu assured passengers that his ministry and Airports Authority of India (AAI) are actively managing the situation using manual methods to ensure minimal disruption.
Vaishnaw said the IT ministry is continually in touch with Microsoft, which in turn is actively working with impacted entities. "In addition, CERT-In is coordinating with CISOs of critical infrastructure entities. All impacted entities are working to bring up their
systems. In many cases, systems are partially up," the minister said in a post on X.
Resolution forthcoming: Microsoft
We anticipate a resolution is forthcoming. We’re aware of an issue affecting Windows devices due to an update from a third-party software platform. - Microsoft spokesperson
