Industries Slowly Resume Online Ops After Microsoft Outage Hitch, Full Recovery Likely To Take Time -- Updates

A widespread Microsoft outage caused by a faulty CrowdStrike antivirus update has disrupted business operations globally.

Day-to-day operations of businesses and services around the globe are gradually getting back on track after a massive IT outage affected computer systems worldwide on Friday. However, experts believe the full recovery from the tech meltdown-- being perceived as the largest in recent history-- would take "some time."

The global tech crash was sparked by a faulty software update to an antivirus program operating on Microsoft Windows, which ironically intended to safeguard computer systems. The outage wreaked havoc on the daily operations of airports, banks, businesses, and some healthcare providers.

The outage was caused by a malfunctioning software update fed to Microsoft Windows users by CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm valued at USD 83 billion. The breakdown affected Microsoft users who use CrowdStrike on their computer systems. When the users applied the update, the incompatible software crashed computers into a frozen state known as the "Blue Screen of Death."

CrowdStrike said a fix has been deployed. In a statement, the firm's CEO, George Kurtz said his teams were "fully mobilised" to help affected customers, however, it could be "some time" before all systems are back up and running. 

Microsoft, meanwhile, said the underlying cause has been fixed and all impacted services have been restored.

Affected Industries

The air travel industry bore the major brunt of the breakdown, with the grounding of thousands of flights worldwide. Many major airlines were forced to revert to manual check-in processes and handwritten boarding passes at airports as passengers waited in long queues. According to FlightAware, an aviation analytics firm, more than 5,000 flights were canceled globally, with over 3,000 of those originating or arriving in the United States. 

In India, airline systems across airports started working normally after 3 AM on Saturday, according to the Ministry of Civil Aviation. "Flight operations are going smoothly now. There is a backlog because of disruptions yesterday, and it is getting cleared gradually. By noon today, we expect all issues to be resolved," the Ministry said.

Stock markets also slid on Friday after computer systems crashed worldwide, with sentiment also hit by US election uncertainty and Chinese economic worries. The London Stock Exchange saw a delayed start to trading due to the glitch -- the result of a faulty update to an antivirus program. Later, the calculation of London's blue-chip FTSE 100 index was frozen during part of the afternoon, as was the main index for the LSE-owned Milan stock exchange. Trading in stocks was unaffected.

Wall Street's main stock indices tried to push higher in morning trading but quickly tumbled into the red where they lingered for the rest of the day. The S&P 500 finished down 0.7 percent. European shares also closed lower across the board, as did most Asian markets.

The Indian financial and payments systems, however, remained largely unaffected by the Microsoft services outage, though about 10 banks and NBFCs faced minor disruptions which have either been resolved or are being fixed. 

The Reserve Bank said it has made an assessment of the impact of this outage on its regulated entities. "Critical systems of most banks are not in cloud and further, only a few banks are using the CrowdStrike tool. Our assessment shows that only 10 banks and NBFCs had minor disruptions which have either been resolved or are being resolved," RBI said in a statement. 

Conspiracy Theories Take Off

The outage gave way to a swirl of evidence-free posts on X, that peddled an apocalyptic narrative: The world was under attack by a nefarious force.

"I read somewhere once that ww3 (World War III) would be mostly a cyber war," one user wrote on X.

The IT crash also stirred up an unfounded theory that the World Economic Forum -- long a magnet for wild falsehoods -- had plotted a global cyberattack. To make that theory appear credible, many posts linked an old WEF video that warned about the possibility of a "cyberattack with Covid-like characteristics."

The video, available on the WEF's website, cautioned that the only way to stop the exponential spread of the cyber threat would be to disconnect millions of vulnerable devices from each other and the internet.

Also gaining rapid traction online were conspiratorial posts using the hashtag "cyber polygon," a reference to a global training event aimed at preparing for potential future attacks.