Microsoft CrowdStrike Outage: 3 Things to know about the global IT glitch

Microsoft Outage: Microsoft’s services witnessed a major outage on Friday morning. The outage that was caused by a ‘configuration change in a portion of our Azure backend workloads’ affected functioning across industries including airports, airlines, media and banks, across the globe. The global outage not only grounded hundreds of flights at airports across the globe including in India, but it also disrupted banking operations and booking system for medical professionals.

The global Microsoft outage began more than 16 hours ago with users across the globe being unable to access and use Microsoft 365 apps and services including Microsoft Whiteboard, Microsoft Teams, Skype, Outlook, Microsoft Copilot and OneDrive. At the time, the company, via a post from its Microsoft 365 Status channel on X (formerly Twitter), said that it was ‘investigating an issue impacting users’ ability to access various Microsoft 365 apps and services’.

Later today, the company, via an update on its Microsoft Service Health page announced that all its affected services were working properly. More recently the company announced that all the issues with the impacted services have resolved completely. “We’ve completed our mitigation actions and our telemetry indicates all previously impacted Microsoft 365 apps and services have recovered. We’re entering a period of monitoring to ensure impact is fully resolved,” the company wrote.

We’ve completed our mitigation actions and our telemetry indicates all previously impacted Microsoft 365 apps and services have recovered. We’re entering a period of monitoring to ensure impact is fully resolved. For more information, see MO821132 within the admin center.

— Microsoft 365 Status (@MSFT365Status) July 19, 2024

As the Microsoft CrowdStrike Outage gets resolved, here are three important things you need to know about the global IT glitch that brought the world to a standstill:

Microsoft Crowdstrike Outage explained in 5 points

1. What caused the Microsoft Outage?

The global outage was caused by a software update pushed by cybersecurity firm called CrowdStrike. The company via an update on its official blog post explained that ‘there was an issue with a Falcon content update for Windows Hosts’. “Today was not a security or cyber incident. Our customers remain fully protected…We are working with all impacted customers to ensure that systems are back up and they can deliver the services their customers are counting on,” CrowStrike CEO George Kurtz wrote in a post on X.

Today was not a security or cyber incident. Our customers remain fully protected.

We understand the gravity of the situation and are deeply sorry for the inconvenience and disruption. We are working with all impacted customers to ensure that systems are back up and they can…

— George Kurtz (@George_Kurtz) July 19, 2024

2. What issues did the Microsoft outage cause?

The updated pushed by CrowdStrike essentially led to a configuration change in a portion of Azure backend workloads, which in turn caused an interruption between storage and compute resources that resulted in connectivity failures. These affected downstream Microsoft 365 services dependent on these connections. Simply put, the CrowdStrike bricked the systems running Microsoft 365 apps and services.

On the user front, individual users and companies across the globe saw the Blue Screen of Death on their PC screens. Here’s a guide of how you can fix the Blue Screen of Death on your PC.

3. What is Microsoft saying?

Microsoft has confirmed that the issue has been mitigated and that all the impacted Microsoft 365 apps and service have recovered completely.

After an extended period of monitoring, we’ve determined that the issue is mitigated, and all previously impacted Microsoft 365 apps and service have recovered. For more information, see MO821132 within the admin center.

— Microsoft 365 Status (@MSFT365Status) July 19, 2024