Produced by: Tarun Mishra Designed by: Manoj Kumar
Widespread Disruptions
Businesses worldwide, including banks, airlines, telecommunications companies, TV and radio broadcasters, and supermarkets, faced disruptions due to blue screen of death (BSOD) errors on Windows workstations.
Global Reports
Users on the Crowdstrike subreddit reported issues in countries including India, the United States, and New Zealand.
Broadcasting Impact
In the UK, Sky News went off air, with sports presenter Jacquie Beltrao acknowledging the outage on social media. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Sky News Australia also reported broadcast difficulties.
Airline Disruptions
Melbourne Airport experienced check-in delays, advising passengers to allow extra time. The issues affected airlines globally, causing significant travel disruptions.
Railway Issues
Govia Thameslink Railway in the UK reported IT issues across its network, affecting Southern, Thameslink, Gatwick Express, and Great Northern services. Passengers were warned of potential cancellations and disruptions.
Banking and Supermarkets
Australian banking apps and supermarket systems faced outages, with users unable to access services.
Technical Cause
Crowdstrike identified the BSOD issues as related to its Falcon Sensor product. Engineers traced the problem to a content deployment issue and reverted the changes to resolve it.
Government Response
Australia’s national cyber security coordinator, Lt Gen Michelle McGuinness, confirmed the outages were due to a third-party software issue, not a cyberattack.
Microsoft Services
Concurrently, Microsoft reported accessibility issues with its 365 cloud-based app services. Additionally, a separate cloud outage grounded airlines in the US, although this was believed to be unrelated to the BSOD errors. These incidents highlight the extensive impact of the technical outage on various industries and the global effort to resolve the issues promptly.
