Ramping up to help our clients: CEO Pallia on CrowdStrike outage

Wipro

Wipro Chief Executive Officer Srinivas Pallia on July 19 said the company is running the process to help its clients who are affected by the ongoing global CrowdStrike outage.

On July 19, software updates from American cybersecurity technology firm CrowdStrike triggered a significant disruption in Microsoft Windows services worldwide, causing the infamous “Blue Screen of Death” error on numerous computers. This widespread glitch has led to severe interruptions in various sectors, including aviation, banks, brokerage firms, etc.

“We are actually talking to the clients, trying to step up and help them because we are following the Sun model, Europe and US,” Pallia said at a press conference after declaring first quarter results ended June 30.

However, Wipro confirmed that the company itself has not faced any issues due to the outage.

“We have seen the impact of CrowdStrike, so, all I can say is that, we are running the process to help our clients. We are going by client by client to use CrowdStrike for them,” Pallia further said.

CrowdStrike founder and CEO George Kurtz has issued an apology over the disruptive outage that its software update caused to global clients, saying the company is working with each and every customer to bring them back online. Kurtz was speaking to NBC's 'Today' show.

Microsoft said that the underlying cause behind the disruption in the Azure cloud service has been fixed. “This is not a security incident or cyberattack,” CEO George Kurtz said.

Electronics and Information Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said that the Indian government is in touch with Microsoft and updates are being released to resolve the issue.

Meanwhile, the outage caused affected airlines around the world, with several flights being cancelled and grounded. Check-in systems at airports across India, including Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru airports were down causing commotion for passengers on July 19 morning. Airlines, particularly IndiGo, Akasa, and SpiceJet, were affected due to glitch in check-in systems.

Later, Delhi airport officials said that check-in counters were back after a three-hour disruption because of the Microsoft issue between 11.30 am to 2.30 pm. IndiGo cancelled 32 flights across India.

India’s banking regulator, the Reserve Bank of India, said that only 10 banks and non-banking finance companies had minor disruptions due to large-scale outage.

Also read: Govt’s digital operations remain unaffected amid global Microsoft outage: sources