Hundreds of Microsoft engineers and experts have been sent to work directly with customers to restore services after an estimated 8.5 million devices were hit by a global outage. It was an update release from cybersecurity partner CrowdStrike on July 18, 2024, that caused an outage across industries.
In an official blog post dated July 20, Microsoft detailed the extent of the disruption and its ongoing efforts to mitigate the impact. “We are deploying hundreds of Microsoft engineers and experts to work directly with customers to restore services,” said the post.
That’s because the outage ticked off the points of sales and grounded airlines in India. The functioning of airports and airlines was majorly impacted at this time when the airlines IndiGo, SpiceJet, and Akasa suffered trouble with their online check-in and boarding. Many have been forced to move to manual work, causing delays and inconvenience to passengers. Airlines have communicated advisories to passengers informing them of the situation and what was being done to correct it.
This resulted in the outage being widely reported, with many venting their frustration on the outage-tracking website Downdetector. Others reported receiving the ‘Blue Screen of Death’ error message on the social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter).
Microsoft said it has also been working with other cloud providers and stakeholders—including GCP and AWS—to share awareness concerning the impact of the incident, and to inform on continuous discussions with CrowdStrike and affected customers. “We understand the inconvenience this matter brought to businesses and even the lives of many people each passing day. We are precise in giving our customers technical advice and support to safely bring the disrupted systems back online,” the blog said.
The software giant says the incident is yet another example of how the world is increasingly closely interconnected: cloud providers, software platforms, security vendors, and customers. “It is a sobering reminder of how critical it is for all of us across the tech ecosystem to up our game and do better with running safe deployment and DR using mechanisms that exist,” Microsoft said.
While recognizing software updates cause some disturbances in normal operation, Microsoft stressed the kind of disruption witnessed due to CrowdStrike is a very rare event. It serves as a stark reminder to having robust disaster recovery plans and close collaboration of tight industry-wide resilience and stability.
