 "Microsoft outage: What led to ‘blue screen of death’ error? Which services have been impacted and where?")
If you are experiencing the annoying blue screen error, also known as Blue Screen of Death, on your laptop or computer, don’t fret. You are not alone. Businesses, airlines, banks and other companies are all spiralling out of control owing to a global Microsoft outage.
Social media platforms such as X, Facebook and others all lit up with users complaining about their Windows system crashing and serving them with the Blue Screen of Death error. Microsoft, Azure even became trending topics on X as people continuously posted about their issues with their Windows devices.
But what exactly happened? Who’s been affected? What caused this outage? We explore and give you the answers.
What blue screen error?
On Friday, several Windows 365 users across the world complained that they were experiencing the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) error, which is causing the system to suddenly shut down or restart.
Forums like Reddit were flooded with posts of people complaining that their PCs were randomly restarting and switching to the blue screen error mode, which makes the devices unusable.
Pictures posted on social media showed users’ screens stuck on the recovery page displaying the following message: “It looks like Windows didn’t load correctly. If you’d like to restart and try again, choose Restart my PC below."
**Also read: PC stuck on Blue Screen of Death loop? Here’s how to stop it from spiralling**The issue soon went viral on social media outlets, with some people expressing joy that they were getting an early weekend break, while others were not pleased with the timing of the outage in the middle of important work and meetings.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsMicrosoft said the outage started about 18:00 ET (23:00 BST) on Thursday.
What’s behind the outage though?
The Blue Screen of Death error quickly turned into a global outage, prompting people all over to ask what’s caused it.
Some reports suggested that a cybersecurity company called Crowdstrike , which produces antivirus software, issued a software update that went horribly wrong, leading to the so-called “blue screen of death” on PCs.
The US-based company later said that the preliminary root cause was a “configuration change” in a portion of its Azure backend workloads. For those who are unaware, Azure is Microsoft’s public cloud computing platform.
The change caused an interruption between storage and compute resources which resulted in connectivity failures that affected downstream Microsoft 365 services dependent on these connections, the US-based company said.
Hours after the initial news of the outage, Microsoft said it had restored the cloud services. In an update at 3:55 am ET, Microsoft 365 said on social platform X: “Multiple services are continuing to see improvements in availability as our mitigation actions progress.”
However, many users are still facing issues and staring at the blue screen error.
Who’s been affected and where?
The global outage has wreaked havoc across the world with users everywhere complaining of services being hit. Companies, banks, airlines, and more reported that they were struggling in the face of the IT outage.
India: In the country, some airlines reported that their services had been hit owing to the error. Akasa, IndiGo, Air India, Vistara and SpiceJet all faced operational challenges.
In a statement, SpiceJet said on X: “We’re currently facing a technical issue in providing updates on flight disruptions. Our team is actively working to resolve this issue. We regret for any inconvenience caused and will update you once the issue is resolved. Thank you for your patience and co-operation.”
Similarly, Akasa Air wrote, “Due to infrastructure issues with our service provider, some of our online services, including booking, check-in and manage booking services will be temporarily unavailable.”
As a temporary solution, airlines are issuing handwritten boarding passes for immediate flights.
Delhi Airport too reported that some services have been affected. “Due to the global IT issue, some of the services at the Delhi Airport were temporarily impacted. We are closely working with all our stakeholders to minimise the inconvenience to our flyers. Passengers are requested to be in touch with the airline concerned or the help desk on ground for updated flight information. We regret the inconvenience caused to our passengers,” they said in a statement.
One report citing sources said that top officials from India’s Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeITY) were in talks with Microsoft to address the outage.
**Also read: Indian sky full of foreign airlines as Microsoft outage grounds most local ones**United States of America: The services of many airlines in America have also been affected owing to the global outage. Airlines such as Delta, United and American Airlines were grounded, said the Federal Aviation Administration.
Low-cost carrier Frontier Airlines also reported outages that affected operations. However, it later said that it was in the process of resuming normal operations, and that the ground stop had been lifted.
US Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg said the department was monitoring the flight cancellation and delay issues at Frontier, adding that the agency will hold the company and all other airlines “to their responsibilities to meet the needs of passengers”.
Perhaps the more worrying aspect was that state troopers were reporting that the 911 call line was down, starting in Alaska. Unconfirmed reports suggest that some lines in Minnesota, Arizona, Indiana Ohio and New Hampshire have also been hit.
United Kingdom: The UK seems to be one of the worst-affected nations. Airlines, the stock exchange, pharmacy services have all been hit. The London Stock Exchange said it’s experiencing a global technical issue preventing news from being published. A statement said, “RNS news service is currently experiencing a third party global technical issue, preventing news from being published on www.londonstockexchange.com. Technical teams are working to restore the service. Other services across the group, including the London Stock Exchange, continue to operate as normal.”
The IT outage has also hit the National Health Services. Pharmacies and prescriptions could also be impacted, the National Pharmacy Association has confirmed. It said: “We’re aware that due to global IT outages services in some community pharmacies, including the accessing of prescriptions from GPs and medicine deliveries, are disrupted today. We urge patients to be patient whilst visiting their pharmacy.”
Some airports such as Heathrow, Gatwick and Luton also complained of delays owing to the outage. Additionally, some rail services have also been impacted by the outage. Several channels also went dark today, including Sky News. News reports later confirmed that Sky News was back on.
Manchester United added that it too had been affected by the worldwide IT outage. The club’s website is down and the release of tickets will be postponed until the issue is resolved.
Australia: Several banks said the outage was affecting online services and transactions. Adelaide Bank said: “We are aware of a widespread and global system issue that is impacting online banking and some transactions. We apologise for any inconvenience. We are investigating and seek to restore service as quickly as possible.”
Customers at supermarkets were angry and flustered as they were unable to buy their daily groceries as checkouts had been hit. Sydney Airport also reported delays and services being hit owing to the IT outage.
Reacting to the situation, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said, “I understand Australians are concerned about the outage that is unfolding globally and affecting a wide range of services. My government is working closely with the National Cyber Security Coordinator. There is no impact on critical infrastructure, government services or Triple-0 services at this stage.”
Other nations: Countries such as Germany, France, Malaysia and many more are also reporting various services to be down owing to the IT outage. As per aviation analytics firm Cirium, more than 1,000 flights have been cancelled around the world today. And this number will only rise as the day progresses.
In France, the organising committee for the Paris Olympics says its IT operations have also been impacted.
At Berlin Airport in Germany, long lines stretched on, and confused families wandered in search of information about flights. In northern Germany, two hospitals had even cancelled elective surgeries for the day. Japan and Malaysia too reported problems at airports.
What next?
Some tech experts believe that the problem isn’t going away anytime soon. As per a BBC report, the ‘Blue Screen of Death’ that computers are suffering means that each one needs to get “hands-on keyboards treatment”. This means that it can’t be fixed with a central command from an IT administrator in a firm’s HQ. They will need to go and reboot each and every computer affected.
With inputs from agencies
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