Tech outage causes worldwide disruptions

CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm that serves a variety of industries, went down in portions of the world, disrupting news broadcasts and grounding flights. This even resulted in hospitals cancelling surgeries and retailers closing for the day. According to the Federal Aviation Administration, at least three major US airlines – American, United, and Delta – grounded all flights. In Australia, the New South Wales Police Force confirmed via social media that a system failure had occurred. Problems lingered at Sydney Airport, one of Australia's largest and busiest transit hubs, as many people began their weekends.

Five Indian airline carriers including Air India, IndiGo, Akasa, SpiceJet, and Vistara reported disruptions to their booking systems, prompting them to switch to manual operations. They advised passengers to contact their respective airlines for flight information. In fact, over 200 flights got cancelled. IndiGo stated that the ability to rebook a flight or claim a refund was temporarily unavailable. “Flights are cancelled due to the cascading effect of the worldwide travel system outage, beyond our control. The option to rebook/claim a refund is temporarily unavailable," IndiGo stated on X. Amid the outrage, Air India too issued a customer advisory on X, “Airport travel systems across the world have been impacted due to a tech outage and this may affect your travel plan. If you are flying with us today, we request you to check the status of your flight before heading to the airport.”

IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw confirmed that the cause of the outage had been identified, and updates have been deployed to address the issue. “MEITY (Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology) is in touch with Microsoft and its associates regarding the global outage. The reason for this outage has been identified, and updates have been released to resolve the issue. CERT is issuing a technical advisory. NIC (National Informatics Centre) network is not affected,” Vaishnaw wrote on social media.

The chaos and disruption spread worldwide due to a defective software update released by CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm based in Austin, Texas. CrowdStrike’s software is widely used by multinational corporations, government agencies and numerous other organisations to defend against hackers and online intrusions. But when CrowdStrike sent its update on Thursday to its customers that run Microsoft Windows software, the computers began to crash.

The immediate and unavoidable aftermath underscored the fragility of global technology infrastructure. With heavy reliance on Microsoft and a few cybersecurity giants such as CrowdStrike, the release of a single flawed software update can swiftly wreak havoc on countless companies and organisations that integrate these technologies into their daily operations.

It was in 2011 that CrowdStrike, was founded by George Kurtz, the present CEO, and others. Over the years, it has built a reputation as a firm that could solve even the toughest security problems. It was tapped to investigate a 2014 hack of Sony Pictures and the 2016 hack of the Democratic National Committee, which exposed Hillary Clinton’s emails. But there have been certain problems in the past and with this issue, CrowdStrike has promised to improve its resting processes.

While service disruptions are a regular occurrence, often resulting from technical glitches or cyberattacks, the scope of what unfolded on Friday has been stated to be an unparalleled incident.