Microsoft outage: Airports, brokerages, Indian firms haunted by ‘Blue Screen of Death’

Services across the world were affected after a technology outage affected Microsoft windows users. The impact of the outage—attributed to a software update issued by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike—was felt in India too, by airports, airlines, brokers and others.

Passengers at several airports across the country faced delays at check-in counters with delays of over an hour in air traffic operations impacting departures. Flights operations of airlines Indigo, Air India, Vistara, Akasa, Air India Express and SpiceJet were impacted. All airlines have told passengers to keep a tab on their flights as there are delays.  

According to the flightradar24 data, a live tracking platform, on average there were delays of an hour at major airports, with the disruption index touching 4.8 on a scale of 5. That indicates major problems with long delays and cancelled flights. Kolkata, Hyderabad and Cochin airports were among the Top 10 airports globally that faced the longest delays, according to the data.

Passengers with flights during the day have been issued handwritten boarding passes by airlines while airline teams have been in touch with Microsoft to resolve the issues. No flights have been cancelled so far and ground teams of airlines are managing the operations.

Murlidhar Mohol, Minister of State for Aviation, said: “Due to an interruption in Microsoft’s cloud services, there is a global issue affecting various sectors, including the airline systems in India. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) and the Ministry of Civil Aviation are closely monitoring the situation. We have instructed private airlines to promptly inform passengers about the disruptions. Our teams are working diligently to resolve the issue as quickly as possible to minimize inconvenience to passengers.”

A majority of airlines issued advisories to passengers regarding possible delays and trouble due to global outages and to reach airport in advance keeping in mind spill over. An official of the Ministry of Civil Aviation, said all airlines have been instructed to inform passengers via SMS about check-in delays/cancellation.

Airport operators also issued advisories saying they are working with all our stakeholders to minimise the inconvenience to our flyers and advised passengers to be in touch with the airline concerned or the help desk on ground for updated flight information.

IndiGo said, “Our systems are currently impacted by a Microsoft outage, which is also affecting other companies. During this time booking, check-in, access to your boarding pass, and some flights may be impacted. We appreciate your patience.”

Likewise, Akasa Air said that due to infrastructure issues with their service provider, some of their online services, including booking, check-in and manage booking services will be temporarily unavailable.

“Currently we are following manual check-in and boarding processes at the airports and hence request passengers with immediate travel plans to reach the airport early to check-in at our counters. We sincerely regret the inconvenience caused and want to assure you that our teams are working with our service provider to resolve the same at the earliest,” Akasa Air said on X.

India’s biggest carmaker Maruti Suzuki said it was impacted too. “The company immediately initiated precautionary and remedial measures and production or despatch operations were briefly halted. The company has been able to resume its operations now. The company does not anticipate any material impact of this incident on its performance.”

HDFC Bank said its systems were unaffected by the global outage. “There is no impact on banking operations,” said Ramesh Lakshminarayan, CIO & Group Head–IT, HDFC Bank.

A source at MakeMyTrip said that though the company was impacted they wished not to comment. Start-ups like Simpl, Juspay, NPCI, Kiwi, Simpl declined to comments.

Sundareshwar K, Partner & Leader - Cybersecurity, PwC India, said: “This is a black swan event impacting not just businesses but the overall national machinery, and underscores how safeguarding entities against risk involves much more than technology. This development highlights how it is a misnomer that enhanced technology deployment alone will help organisations become more secure and ensure business continuity. While organisations work towards remediation of the current situation, the focus should be on rethinking risks and moving beyond the layers, patches, products and tools to building an inherently strong cyber architecture with complementary interventions that ensure resilience in the face of such unforeseen technology setbacks or failures.”

Markets

There was no disruption of operations due to the outage of Microsoft windows on Friday, the domestic stock exchanges said, even as widespread impact was reported by stock brokers and airlines. An NSE spokesperson said that the exchange and NSE Clearing Ltd are working normally. Likewise, a BSE spokesperson confirmed that the exchange did not see any disruption due to the outage.

But the picture was different for brokerages. Discount broker 5paisa said on X (formerly Twitter), “Due to a global outage with Crowdstrike/Microsoft, offering a cyber security solution, our systems are affected. Our team is working closely with both of them to restore our systems as soon as possible.”

On the other hand, Groww said it does not work with CrowdStrike and their services haven’t been affected. Zerodha said it wasn’t impacted.

Manoj Ajgaonkar, Partner, Digital, Trust and Transformation, at financial services firm Forvis Mazars in India, said: “The recent global outage affecting millions of Microsoft Windows users, resulting in the ‘Blue Screen of Death’ error, poses significant operational challenges and heightens cybersecurity risks by exposing systems to exploitation. To safeguard our clients’ interests and ensure resilience, it is crucial to address these issues proactively with robust back-up systems, automated rollback mechanisms, rigorous testing of updates, and comprehensive business continuity plans.”

Healthcare

The healthcare sector was also impacted. Max Healthcare said it had deployed Crowdstrike on its systems at Max Healthcare. “Due to an outage of Crowdstrike around 10 am today, many of our software applications used for patient care and other processes were impacted. We had to switch to manual processes to service our patients as an alternative mechanism. After implementing the recovery process provided by Crowdstrike, our systems have fully restored, and we have resumed regular operations,” a spokesperson said.

At Fortis, there was a brief interruption of diagnostic services. “We experienced a brief interruption in our diagnostic services, which was managed efficiently. Our systems continue to run normally, and we have conducted thorough checks to verify this,” it said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Apollo Hospital said it was unaffected. “Our robust technological infrastructure and advanced back-up systems ensure security against such outages and glitches. We have invested deeply in facilities to make sure our patients do not get impacted in their most critical time of need,” a spokesperson said.

Aakash Healthcare Super Speciality Hospital, Dwarka, termed the outage an alarming reminder of how critical software systems are to operations. “As the backbone of our digital infrastructure, any disruption could have severe consequences. We are taking this opportunity to review and strengthen our contingency plans to ensure we can maintain uninterrupted services in the future,” said Dr Aashish Chaudhry, Managing Director of Aakash Healthcare Super Speciality Hospital, Dwarka. 

Pharmaceutical companies Dr Reddy’s, Cipla, Glenmark, Lupin and Novo Nordisk did not wish to comment.