Google Search, YouTube, Gmail Affected In Worldwide Tech Outage

Goggle users on Monday experienced problems with Gmail, Goggle Search, YouTube and other services. The complaints of outages were reported at around 9pm (Eastern Time) and the services were restored immediately, according to Downdetector, platform tracking online outages.

This comes after a global IT outage in the month of July. The global IT outage was traced back to a recent update from CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm. This disruption affected various sectors, including healthcare, causing significant delays and operational challenges worldwide.

Microsoft acknowledged the issue and worked to resolve it. "CrowdStrike update was responsible for bringing down a number of IT systems globally," Microsoft said in a statement. 

By late Friday, Microsoft reported that mitigation actions had been completed and services had recovered, though monitoring would continue to ensure ongoing stability.

Microsoft Outage: Impact Across Key Sectors

Stock Market Disruptions: In India, shares of stock brokerage firms like Angel One and 5paisa Capital saw declines on Friday due to operational disruptions caused by the outage. Globally, bankers in Hong Kong, Dubai, South Africa, and London experienced difficulties accessing computer systems and executing trades.

Airline and Airport Chaos: The global aviation sector faced significant disruptions, with airports and airlines reporting delays, cancellations, and manual check-ins. In India, IndiGo canceled over 200 flights, and airlines such as SpiceJet, Air India, Air India Express, and Vistara issued advisories to passengers.

Financial Sector Impact: The global financial industry was heavily affected. In India, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) reported that the outage caused minor disruptions for 10 banks and non-banking financial companies (NBFCs). The RBI assured that these issues are being addressed and that critical banking systems were largely unaffected.

Healthcare Disruptions: Health systems worldwide faced challenges, with some procedures canceled and reliance on handwritten records. The UK's National Health Service (NHS) experienced disruptions in booking doctor appointments and accessing patient records, although emergency services remained operational.

Media Broadcast Interruptions: In the UK, Sky News resumed broadcasting after several hours of outage but operated at reduced capacity. Australia's ABC also reported a "major network outage," though details on the cause were not provided.  

Role of Crowdstrike

At the heart of the massive disruption is CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm that provides software to scores of companies worldwide. The company says the problem occurred when it deployed a faulty update to computers running Microsoft Windows, and that the issue behind the outage was not a security incident or cyberattack.

Later, the company's CEO issued an apology.  "We're deeply sorry for the impact that we've caused to customers, to travellers, to anyone affected by this, including our company," Kurtz said during an interview on NBC News' "Today" programme. He noted that many customers are rebooting their systems, which are becoming operational again. However, he acknowledged that it might take some time for certain systems to recover fully. The company is committed to ensuring every customer is fully recovered.  

What is CrowdStrike?

CrowdStrike is a U.S. cybersecurity company that provides software to companies around the world and across industries. It bills itself as being the globe's most advanced cloud-based security technology provider. “We stop breaches,” the cybersecurity firm writes on its website.

According to the company's website, CrowdStrike was founded in 2011 and launched in early 2012. CrowdStrike listed on the Nasdaq exchange five years ago. Last month, the Austin, Texas company reported that its revenue rose 33% in the last quarter from the same quarter a year earlier — logging a net profit of $42.8 million, up from $491,000 in the first quarter of last year.

CrowdStrike has a partnership with Amazon Web Services and its “Falcon for Defender” security technology is designed to supplement Microsoft Defender to prevent attacks.  

What Indian govt said?

Ashwini Vaishnaw, India's Minister for Information & Broadcasting, Electronics & Information Technology, took to X and said that his ministry is actively coordinating with Microsoft and its partners to address the global outage. "The reason for this outage has been identified and updates have been released to resolve the issue," he stated, adding that the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) is issuing a technical advisory. He also informed that the National Informatics Centre (NIC) "network is not affected".