Less than two weeks after global outage, dubbed as “blue screen of death”, Microsoft suffered another similar incident, which the company said was triggered by a distributed denial of service (DDoS) cyberattack. According to Forbes, the latest attack was reported by several users on Tuesday in which users complained of not being able to access several Microsoft services, such as Office, Outlook and Azure. The incident lasted nearly 10 hours. Companies affected by the new outage include UK bank NatWest, as per the BBC.

Other impacted services included Azure App Services, Application Insights, Azure IoT Central, Azure Log Search Alerts, Azure Policy, as well as the Azure portal itself and “a subset of Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Purview services”.

The tech giant said it was a DDoS attack that floods a service with traffic in order to bring them to a standstill.

Firms usually put protection in place for DDoS attacks, but an error in the implementation of defences “amplified the impact of the attack rather than mitigating it”, said Microsoft.

This is the second major attack in nearly as many weeks. A Microsoft error had crippled Windows computers worldwide on July 19. It was later revealed that an update to the anti-virus program ‘Falcon Sensor’ by CrowdStrike caused the massive outage.

From airlines to news channels, the glitch led to the crashing of IT systems, disrupting the daily proceedings.

CrowdStrike’s products are predominantly used by major organisations needing robust cyber attack protection, which is why the attack caused a global outage.

Reacting to the glitch, Crowdstrike CEO George Kurtz said it was not a security incident or cyberattack. The company identified the issue, isolated it and deployed a fix.

New Delhi:

“What is CrowdStrike? Why is my Windows computer showing the Blue Screen of Death? Who is responsible for the biggest-ever IT outage?”

These are questions that have dominated conversations across the globe after a Microsoft error brought Windows computers to its heels. While it is now known that an update to an anti-virus program ‘Falcon Sensor’ by CrowdStrike was responsible for the massive worldwide outage, people have still been wondering how such a defective update was allowed to be released and who was behind it.

Step in Vincent Flibustier, an X user parading to be a Crowdstrike employee. Vincent broke the internet with an altered, AI-generated photo of him outside the CrowdStrike office along with the caption, “First day at Crowdstrike, pushed a little update and taking the afternoon off.”

First day at Crowdstrike, pushed a little update and taking the afternoon off pic.twitter.com/bOs4qAKwu0

— Vincent Flibustier (@vinceflibustier) July 19, 2024

The photo went viral within minutes and already has nearly 4 lakh likes and has been shared by over 36,000 users.

Two hours later, Flibustier posted another update – the company had fired him. He also shared a short video where he takes ‘responsibility’ for causing the global outage.

Vincent Flibustier also changed his X (former Twitter) bio to accompany the parody. His bio said, “Former Crowdstrike employee, fired for an unfair reason, only changed 1 line of code to optimize. Looking for a job as Sysadmin.”

While he was trying to make a joke about it, thousands online bought his satire and thought he was the one responsible for the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) on their system. Airlines, banks, TV channels, and several other industries were scrambling to deal with the issue, and people on social media went into overdrive after finding the ‘culprit’.

While several users praised him for ensuring that they don’t have to work on a Friday, some posted abusive messages about him.

The truth: Vincent is a satirical writer who runs Nordpresse, a Belgian parody news site. He appeared as a guest on France TV, where he remarked, “People are drawn to stories that confirm their preconceptions.”

Explaining further why people on the internet immediately latched on to his joke, he said, “No culprit named yet, I bring it on a platter, people like to have a culprit. The culprit seems completely stupid, he is proud of his stupidity, he takes his afternoon off on the first day of work. This falls right into a huge buzz in which people absolutely need to have new information, and a fake is by nature new, you won’t read it anywhere else.”

He also said that the post was shared by those who knew it was a joke, but the amplification sent it into a zone where people took every word of the tweet literally.

Millions of users across the globe are still facing issues, with both Microsoft and CrowdStrike trying to resolve the issue at the earliest.

The latest version of its Falcon Sensor software was meant to make CrowdStrike clients’ systems more secure against hacking by updating the threats it defends against. However faulty code in the update files resulted in one of the most widespread tech outages in recent years for companies using Microsoft’s Windows operating system.

Problems came to light quickly after the update was rolled out on Friday, and users posted pictures on social media of computers with blue screens displaying error messages. These are known in the industry as “blue screens of death.”

New Delhi:

Millions of Windows users across the globe are experiencing the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) error which is causing the system to suddenly shut down or restart. Microsoft in a message said that the error is being caused due to a recent CrowdStrike update.

The bug has affected several companies, banks and government offices across the globe. Most Indian airlines have taken to X (formerly Twitter) to share the update with fliers.

#TravelUpdate: Due to infrastructure issues with our service provider, some of our online services, including booking, check-in and manage booking services will be temporarily unavailable. Currently we are following manual check-in and boarding processes at the airports and hence…

— Akasa Air (@AkasaAir) July 19, 2024

Social media users posted pictures showing their screens stuck on the recovery page displaying the message: “It looks like Windows didn’t load correctly. If you’d like to restart and try again, choose Restart my PC below.”

I am aware of a large-scale technical outage affecting a number of companies and services across Australia this afternoon.

Our current information is this outage relates to a technical issue with a third-party software platform employed by affected companies.

— National Cyber Security Coordinator (@AUCyberSecCoord) July 19, 2024

Blue Screen errors, also known as black screen errors or STOP code errors, can occur when a critical issue forces Windows to unexpectedly shut down or restart. You may encounter a message stating, “Windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer” or a similar notification.

These errors can stem from hardware or software problems. If you recently installed new hardware and encountered a Blue Screen error, try shutting down your PC, removing the new hardware, and attempting to restart. If restarting poses difficulty, you can initiate your PC in safe mode. For detailed steps, refer to the instructions on starting your PC in safe mode in Windows.

Additionally, consider updating Windows with the latest patches through Windows Update, seeking assistance from other sources, or restoring Windows to a previous restore point.

If none of these measures resolve the Blue Screen error, utilize the Blue Screen Troubleshooter available in the Get Help app:

• Open the Get Help app in Windows.
• Type “Troubleshoot BSOD error” in the search bar of the Get Help app.
• Follow the step-by-step instructions provided in the Get Help app.