On July 18 and 19, massive outages were observed in Microsoft’s Windows operating system (OS) across the world that caused severe disruptions across critical sectors, including aviation, railways, media broadcasts, banking, stock exchanges and hospitals, as indicated by the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) appearing in those affected systems. The reason being ascribed so far is the malfunction of a software update for the Falcon sensor from the cyber security firm Crowdstrike, deployed at endpoints with Windows OS, which brought the systems down.

Microsoft and CrowdStrike have a strategic partnership on cyber security and as part of that, Falcon integrates with various Microsoft products, including Azure, Microsoft 365, and Windows OS. Linux and Apple OS were not impacted by the outage as confirmed by Crowdstrike.

Link: https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/global-microsoft-outage-9465182/