Not a cyberattack? Indian government responds as Microsoft tackles widespread outage

Ashwini Vaishnaw, the Minister for Electronics & Information Technology, confirmed that the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) is in contact with Microsoft and its associates regarding the global outage. This outage has also affected businesses and airlines in India. 

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New Delhi: Microsoft apps and services recently faced a global outage, which disrupted businesses worldwide. The outage affected various industries, including airports, television news stations, financial institutions, and emergency services. While Microsoft is working to resolve the issue, the Indian government has also taken steps to address the situation by preparing to issue a technical advisory.

Indian government's response to Microsoft outage

Ashwini Vaishnaw, the Minister for Electronics & Information Technology, confirmed that the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) is in contact with Microsoft and its associates regarding the global outage. This outage has also affected businesses and airlines in India. 

The minister assured that the cause of the Microsoft outage has been identified, and updates have been released to resolve the issue. He also confirmed that the NIC network is not affected. Moreover, the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) has issued a technical advisory to guide affected parties.

Microsoft, CrowdStrike respond to outage

Microsoft's spokesperson stated that the issue, which affected Windows devices, was caused by an update from a third-party software platform. The company is working to resolve the problem and anticipates a solution soon.

The outage was linked to a recent update from cybersecurity provider CrowdStrike. CrowdStrike reported widespread incidents of Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) issues on Windows hosts across multiple sensor versions. The company identified the issue and has since reverted the faulty update.

George Kurtz, President & CEO of CrowdStrike, explained that the company is actively working with customers affected by a defect in a single content update for Windows hosts. He clarified that the incident was not a security breach or cyberattack and assured that Mac and Linux hosts were not affected.

Kurtz stated that the issue had been identified, isolated, and fixed. He directed customers to the support portal for the latest updates and assured continuous communication from the company. Kurtz also recommended that organizations communicate with CrowdStrike representatives through official channels.

CrowdStrike takes action to resolve outage

CrowdStrike provided a workaround for systems experiencing BSODs. The solution involves booting affected Windows machines into Safe Mode or Windows Recovery Environment. Users need to navigate to the CrowdStrike directory located at C:\Windows\System32\drivers\CrowdStrike and delete a specific system file matching C-00000291.sys. After completing these steps, users can boot the system normally.