On July 19th, suddenly, a worldwide glitch happened, affecting air transport, banking, and some other sectors. CrowdStrike, a well-known cyber-security firm, uploaded its Falcon Sensor Software to the systems, causing this glitch. The design of the software was to safeguard systems against cyber-attacks. This resulted in the infamous ‘Blue Screen of Death’ (BSOD) for worldwide users. Affected platforms included Microsoft 365, Azure, and Amazon Web Services.
Numerous flights experienced delays worldwide. Many aviation companies, like Delta Air, American Airlines, British Airways, Turkish Airlines and IndiGo, grounded their flights. Similar disruptions also affected the banking sector. Both Satyam Nadella (CEO of Microsoft) and George Kurtz (CEO of CrowdStrike) came forward to inform the world. While Mr. Nadella revealed the impact on approximately 8.5 million systems, Mr. Kurtz clarified that this was not a security or cyber incident. (https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/technology/tech-news/microsoft-ceo-satya-nadella-shares-update-on-windows-outage/articleshow/111869079.cms)
This was crucial because many people feared a cyber-attack and potential data hacking. In particular, the world is grappling with two ongoing wars. However, individuals’ systems remained unaffected, as major organizations, but not the general public, require robust cyber-attack protections. The Hindustan Times reports that CrowdStrike may have lost $16 billion, while NDTV reports that Microsoft lost $9 million. (https://www.ndtv.com/business-news/microsoft-outage-causes-75-000-crore-wealth-wipeout-of-crowdstrike-6153273)
This also raises the question: Do we have any alternatives to these? Again, India is offering the solution. Bharat Operating Systems (BharOS), which was indigenously developed in India by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), is an autonomous scientific society under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India.
Then the next question arises: Are we too dependent on IT? This was due to technical issues during the update process, which brought a significant portion of the world to a complete halt. What would have happened to people if there had been a cyber-attack that potentially compromised data? If this attack hit any communication satellite, how will it affect any given country’s security?