India working with Microsoft to help impacted entities: IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw

New Delhi, July 19: Union Electronics and IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Friday said the IT Ministry is continually in touch with tech giant Microsoft to help impacted entities after a massive global outage due to a third-party software update in Windows affected airlines, banks, hospitals and more.

In a fresh post on social media platform X, he informed that Microsoft is actively working with impacted entities.

"In addition, CERT-In is coordinating with CISOs of critical infrastructure entities. All impacted entities are working to bring up their systems. In many cases, systems are partially up," the Union Minister said.

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

The government has also issued an advisory on the outage of Microsoft Windows owing to the CrowdStrike agent 'Falcon Sensor' update.

The CERT-In said it has been reported that Windows hosts related to the cyber-security platform CrowdStrike agent "Falcon Sensor" are facing outages and crashing due to a recent update received in the product. The concerned Windows hosts are experiencing a "Blue Screen of Death (BSOD)" related to Falcon Sensor.

Meanwhile, former Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar told IANS that he hopes Microsoft will restore its services soon.

"Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Suite are used by millions of Indians. Any disruption on this platform disrupts the business and operations of many companies. The government will work with Microsoft to ensure that services are restored as soon as possible," he said.