Microsoft Outage Disrupts Aviation in India and Global Sectors

A faulty update released on July 19 caused a widespread disruption, affecting several Windows computers and servers worldwide. This glitch sent systems into a boot loop, displaying the infamous blue screen of death.

The impacted sectors included aviation, banking, telecommunications, hospitals, and television channels. The problematic update was part of the Falcon endpoint threat detection and response product from CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm based in Austin, Texas.

Impact on Global Aviation

The aviation sector was one of the hardest hit by the disruption. In the United States, flights were temporarily grounded, and airports struggled with the collapse of their digital systems. In India, airlines resorted to manual check-ins at major airports, including those in Bengaluru, Chennai, New Delhi, Hyderabad, Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram, and Mumbai.

Handwritten boarding passes were issued as flight information display boards showed blue error screens. IndiGo reported the cancellation of at least 283 flights over Friday and Saturday due to the outage.

Other airlines such as Akasa Air, SpiceJet, Vistara, Air India, and Air India Express did not disclose their flight cancellation numbers. Bangalore International Airport Ltd stated that the issues stemmed from a departure control system developed by Navitaire. Civil Aviation Minister Kinjarapu Ram Mohan Naidu urged airlines to provide food and water to passengers during delays.

Broader Sectoral Impact

The Union government's eOffice suite, which processes files and paperwork, was also affected for two hours. However, the National Informatics Centre remained unaffected, according to Minister for Electronics and Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw. The Reserve Bank of India reported that only a few banks using the CrowdStrike tool were impacted, ensuring that the Indian financial sector under its domain remained largely insulated from the global outage.

Maruti Suzuki India Ltd briefly halted its production and dispatch operations but managed to resolve the issue internally. The disruptions began globally at 3:30 a.m. and affected Indian airports and airlines as their systems received the faulty update. Although airlines managed to partially restore digitized boarding procedures, executives warned of cascading delays in subsequent flights.

Recovery Efforts and Apologies

CrowdStrike withdrew the faulty update and issued a fix, requiring network and IT administrators to perform a manual four-step recovery process. This process was necessary because affected computers and servers needed to boot completely to download the fixed software.

The Indian Computer Emergency Team (CERT-in) provided these steps in an advisory. Mr. Vaishnaw confirmed that the government was in continuous contact with Microsoft, and CERT-in was coordinating with chief information security officers at critical infrastructure entities to bring systems back online.

CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz apologized for the disruptions and pledged extended support to affected customers. Microsoft stated that it is actively assisting customers in their recovery efforts.

Conclusion

The faulty update from CrowdStrike caused significant disruptions across various sectors globally, with aviation being particularly affected. In India, manual processes temporarily replaced digital systems at airports, leading to delays and cancellations. While recovery efforts are underway, the incident highlights the critical importance of reliable software updates and rapid response mechanisms to mitigate widespread operational disruptions.