World yet to recover from Windows global outage, full recovery could take time

Sunday 21 July 2024 12:04 AM IST

NEW YORK: The world is yet to recover from the impact of the biggest IT outage in history. This breakdown is primarily blamed on US company CrowdStrike's Falcon Sensor software which brought millions of computers to a standstill on Friday. CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz announced that the issue has been resolved. But full recovery from the outage could take time.

Scientists have termed the crisis that has paralyzed people's digital lives as a computer pandemic. The disruption of IT services has revealed the of the existing computer technology. It is unsure whether it will happen again. The reason for the global outage is that the majority depends on Windows. An alternative is required to counter any future issues.

China unaffected

China is the only country that has escaped the pan-world breakdown that brought lives to a standstill. This is because China does not depend on Microsoft. Cloud service providers in China are domestic companies such as Alibaba, Tencent, and Huawei. The shutdown only affected foreign companies in China that use Microsoft. China is implementing indigenous IT technologies. There is a parallel network that governs the Internet locally - the 'splinternet'. The Great Firewall is China's own internet system that censors content.

Hackers on the prowl

Experts warn that hackers are launching fake software and fake websites in the name of CloudStrike and Microsoft to fix computer malfunctions. These are virus programs. This could lead to more trouble and cause a second breakdown wave.

Flights cancelled

Around 1,700 flights across the world couldn't operate on Saturday. 6855 flights were cancelled on Friday. On the first day, the cancelled flights and their crews were in different parts of the world, so services were disrupted yesterday too. Half a million passengers were stranded in Britain yesterday.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Civil Aviation has announced that many services have been resumed in India after fixing the fault on Saturday morning.

Nine flights that were supposed to operate in Nedumbassery yesterday were cancelled. Six of these are IndiGo flights and remaining being Air India Express. Indian stock exchanges and clearing corporations were not affected.

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