Anand Mahindra takes ’bullish’ stance as Microsoft outage hits businesses around the world

Businesses and public services around the world were disrupted on Friday as Microsoft suffered an massive outage. The ‘unprecedented’ glitch hit airlines, banks, healthcare systems, investments and everything in between — sending many careening back to a pre-technology era. Thousands of people also reported seeing only the 'Windows blue screen of death' as the work day began.

Businessman Anand Mahindra summed up the current situation with a picture of security personnel riding bulls. The photo in question features officials from the Brazilian Buffalo Patrol team who monitor Soure — the capital of Marajó Island in Brazil. They are believe to be the only police force in the world that ride buffaloes.

“The pace of global commercial activity right now—post the Microsoft crowd strike outage,” he opined. 

The post has since prompted amused reactions from several X users with many lauding the ‘amazing patrol vehicle’.

“Yamdut,” explained one user.

“Mahindra n Mahindra also got stalled?” wondered several others.

Many dubbed it a reminder that even technology had a ‘breaking point’. Several users also voiced concern about the world's heavy dependance on technology for every situation.

“Just shows how dependent we are on digital currencies and computers. It’s like the world will come to a halt if something goes wrong with the internet and computers/AI systems,” said one user.

“This outage highlights our heavy reliance on a handful of companies. It's a real concern and a wake-up call for the world to develop alternatives for every critical service. Diversification is key to resilience,” added another.

“We think our lives are in our control. One virus, technical glitch can jeopardize our lives,” read a third, somewhat ominous, post.

An update from CrowdStrike — the security firm linked to a software update that caused the outage — on Friday afternoon indicated that the issue had now been isolated and a fix deployed.

“CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts. Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted. This is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified, and isolated and a fix has been deployed. We refer customers to the support portal for the latest updates and will continue to provide complete and continuous updates on our website. We further recommend organizations ensure they're communicating with CrowdStrike representatives through official channels. Our team is fully mobilized to ensure the security and stability of CrowdStrike customers,” said George Kurtz — the President and CEO of CrowdStrike.

(With inputs from agencies)