The Central government said on Friday that it was in touch with Microsoft and its associates amid the global outage of the US tech giant that affected millions of users across the world, including in India, where airlines and airport services were badly hit.

“The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) is in touch with Microsoft and its associates regarding the global outage. The reason for this outage has been identified and updates have been released to resolve the issue. CERT is issuing a technical advisory. The National Informatics Centre (NIC) network is not affected,” said Ashwini Vaishnaw, Union minister for electronics and information technology, in a post on X.

The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) has issued an advisory, CIAD-2024-0035, addressing a severe outage impacting Microsoft Windows systems.

According to CERT, this disruption is linked to the recent update of the CrowdStrike agent, Falcon Sensor, which has caused affected systems to experience crashes and the notorious “Blue Screen of Death” (BSOD).

Earlier, the global software giant said an outage in its online services has affected customers across the world, including in India. Microsoft Windows users reported facing ‘Blue Screen of Death’ errors with many users taking to social media platform X to report about the issue.

Meanwhile, in its latest update, Microsoft said, “Our services are still seeing continuous improvements while we continue to take mitigation actions. Multiple services are continuing to see improvements in availability as our mitigation actions progress.”

Millions of Microsoft Windows users experienced the “Blue Screen of Death” error that caused their computers to shut down or restart.

The company said it is due to a recent update of American cyber security company Crowdstrike. It cited a “configuration change in a portion of its Azure backend workloads” as the primary reason.

The outage led to an interruption between storage and compute resources which resulted in connectivity failures that affected downstream Microsoft 365 services dependent on these connections, the company noted.

In India, operations of major airlines like Indigo, Vistara, Akasa, Spicejet, and Air India ops, as well as airport services were affected, and the Bengaluru Airport issued an advisory for travellers. Delhi Airport services were also “temporarily impacted”.

Meanwhile, Union Minister of Civil Aviation, Rammohan Naidu, assured travelers that his Ministry and the Airports Authority of India (AAI) are managing the situation with manual methods to minimize disruption.

Minister Naidu stated, “I have directed airport authorities and airlines to be compassionate and provide extra seating, water, and food for passengers affected by delays. We understand your concerns and are working tirelessly to ensure your safe and swift travel. Your patience and cooperation are greatly appreciated.”

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Civil Aviation, along with AAI, has implemented manual backup systems to maintain operational continuity. Passengers are advised to cooperate with airport staff during this period of disruption.

Aviation Minister Naidu emphasised the Ministry’s commitment to minimising inconvenience and ensuring the well-being of all travelers.

Minister Naidu further stressed the importance of maintaining communication with passengers and said, “We have instructed all airlines and airport authorities to keep passengers informed about their flight status and provide necessary assistance.”

Additional measures, include enhanced communication by sending regular updates on flight statuses to passengers, increased support staff, and amenities provision (airports are offering additional seating, water, and food to ensure passenger comfort).

Meanwhile, all airlines in India reported that their systems across the network are impacted by the ongoing outage in Microsoft Azure. Flyers were advised to reach out to their respective airlines for information on the flights.

Indigo’s flight cancellation list showed as many as about 190 flights have been canceled from 15:50 IST today to 05:20 IST Saturday.

Microsoft Azure, or just Azure, is the cloud computing platform developed by Microsoft. It offers management, access, and development of applications and services to individuals, companies, and governments.