NEW DELHI/MUMBAI/BENGALURU : AIRLINES, banks, media outlets, and financial institutions across the world were on Friday thrown into turmoil by one of the biggest IT crashes in recent histoy, caused by an update to an antivirus programme.The mass IT outage came after some widely used Microsoft 365 applications and services shut down for hours as a result of the update. There were unprecedented chaos in major cities, including in India, with flights grounded, communication shut down, and shops closed.Millions encountered the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) error, causing sudden system shutdowns or restarts. Microsoft, which said it was actively working to fix the outage, attributed the BSOD issue to a recent update by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, which admitted that its action affected Windows devices.In India, almost all the airlines and major airports were affected as they struggled to provide online booking, web check-ins, and flight status updates. IndiGo cancelled around 200 flights across the country. SpiceJet, Air India, Akasa, and Vistara also faced disruptions due to a technical error in Microsoft Azure, the cloud computing platform that powers critical systems. Throughout the day, airlines were seen doing manual check-ins and issuing hand-written boarding passes.Operations at key airports such as Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Bengaluru were badly hit, leaving thousands of passengers stranded. Aviation minister Ram Mohan Naidu said his ministry and Airports Authority of India (AAI) are actively managing the situation.
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