Microsoft, a software giant based in the US has reportedly deployed hundreds of engineers and experts with its customers. The move has been taken to restore their services after an outage caused by its cyber security partner CrowdStrike.
In an official blog post, the tech giant said, around 8.5 million devices across the world were impacted by the outage which has been caused by an update from CrowdStrike on July 18 (2024), causing major havoc across all the industries.
It was mentioned in the official blog post of Microsoft on July 20: "Deploying hundreds of Microsoft engineers and experts to work directly with customers to restore services.”
The global outage impacted several points of sales and even grounded airlines in India. The outage put operations of businesses and systems across the globe in a state of limbo.
Due to the outrage, airport and airline operations faced major disruptions, with airlines issuing advisories to passengers. Airlines like IndiGo, SpiceJet and Akasa witnessed disruptions in their online check-in and boarding processes across their networks, forcing them to switch to manual mode.
Several users reported disruptions on the outage-tracking website Downdetector, and many took to X (formerly known as Twitter) to vent their frustration on the 'Blue Screen of Death' error messages.
Microsoft stated taht it is collaborating with other cloud providers and stakeholders, including Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and Amazon Web Services (AWS), to share awareness on the state of impact that it is seeing across the industry and inform ongoing conversations with CrowdStrike and customers.
The blog mentioned, "We recognise the disruption this problem has caused for businesses and in the daily routines of many individuals. Our focus is providing customers with technical guidance and support to safely bring disrupted systems back online.”
The software giant said the incident demonstrates the interconnected nature of a broad technology ecosystem comprising global cloud providers, software platforms, security vendors and other software vendors, and customers.
Microsoft further said, "It's also a reminder of how important it is for all of us across the tech ecosystem to prioritise operating with safe deployment and disaster recovery using the mechanisms that exist.”
The software major said that while software updates may occasionally cause disturbances, significant incidents like the CrowdStrike event are infrequent.
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In the blog post, Microsoft said, "While the percentage was small, the broad economic and societal impacts reflect the use of CrowdStrike by enterprises that run many critical services.”
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Like most social media companies, Meta also relies on a mix of artificial intelligence and human review to moderate the billions of posts made to its platforms, which further include WhatsApp Instagram and Threads (Meta’s owned social media platforms).
Inputs from PTI