Imagine the perfect bliss of vacation: packing your favourite goodies in a backpack and wondering how to capture the aesthetical clouds through the window of your flight. Suddenly, within a second, the bubble of happiness bursts, and your flight gets cancelled. Or maybe, imagine that you prepared for a job interview thoroughly and you’re sitting in front of your laptop.It’s time for you to hit the jackpot and get your potential job. Your interview is about to start within 7 minutes, and you decide to have a sip of water to pacify your anxiety, and out of the blue, your “screen turns blue.” Your laptop stops working, and you fail the interview. Were these imaginations scary enough to mow down your happiness and disturb the mental peace of your mind?
They are not just a series of imaginary events; they are the realities faced by millions of people across the globe on Friday. A significant outage affected Microsoft Windows services worldwide, primarily due to a glitch in CrowdStrike’s software on Friday. This led to widespread disruptions, including the infamous Blue Screen of Death (BSOD).
“Crowd Strike is a provider of security software to a huge number of companies across the world, and they rolled out an update overnight, which unfortunately caused the classic ‘blue screen of death’, affecting a lot of Windows machines globally that support a lot of infrastructure,” Patrick Burgess, from the BCS Information Security Specialist Group, said.
Impact of “Blue Screen of Death”
Over 200 flights were cancelled in India alone, causing chaos at airports and affecting thousands of passengers. Airlines faced delays and operational challenges as systems went offline. Even airports like Delhi and Bengaluru reported disruptions in up to 90% of the flights.
In several U.S. states, 911 emergency services were disrupted, raising serious concerns about public safety. Hospitals reported difficulties in accessing critical medical records and systems, impacting patient care.
Many businesses relying on Windows-based systems experienced downtime, leading to lost productivity and revenue. Companies in various sectors, from finance to retail, reported issues with point-of-sale systems and internal operations.
It significantly impacted the stock market as well. Brokerage firms in India, such as 5paisa and IIFL Securities, reported technical issues, leading to frustrations among traders who faced disruptions in executing trades. The BSE Sensex fell by 591.22 points (0.74%), and the Nifty50 dropped by 235.10 points (0.95%) during the glitch. While the Indian stock exchanges remained operational, the outage affected trading platforms reliant on Microsoft services, causing widespread concern among investors.
But this tech glitch surfaces a deeper aspect of our daily lives. It talks volumes about how the lives of human beings significantly revolve around technology. A tech glitch was powerful enough to shake the entire world. To cover the emotional and mental aspects of the glitch, FoEJ Media talked to people to hear their stories.
“A sip of water felt like venom”
Faizan Jarfy, a software engineer, has been working at an IT company in Gurugram for 2 years now. In order to sharpen his skills and build his resume, he prepared for a job interview for six long months. He used to check his LinkedIn account to get a single change and apply to his desired company. After six long months of constant checking and preparing, the day came when he got an opportunity to appear for the interview.
Jafry was just 7 minutes away from achieving his goal. He decided to log into the portal before time and not give a single change to the interviewer to reject him. Full of nervousness, he takes a sip of water to pacify his anxiety, and within a fraction of a second, the laptop screen turns blue.
Jafry was flummoxed and panicked. He tried to figure out the issue, but his brain stopped working. He subsequently ended up having an anxiety attack. Jafry called his interviewer, and they together decided to schedule it over a phone call. The anxiety attack that Jafry went through was enough to pull down his confidence, and he ended up failing the interview.
On talking to FoEJ Media in person, Jafry said, “A skip of water felt like venom.” He further said he did not burn the midnight oil for six long months just to get rejected because of a tech glitch. “I worked hard for 6 months not to get rejected because of a technical glitch,” he added.
“Travelled 2.5 hours for Nothing”
Maryam Fatima, team leader of change and configuration management at one of the most renowned IT companies, told FoEJ Media over a phone call how her entire team had to face the consequences of a failed update. She works for a hybrid-mode company and tried logging into her portal like usual from her home, but on Friday she could not log in. Fatima assumed it was a network issue at her place, but then, within a span of a few minutes, her entire team started complaining about it.
Fatima learned through a Twitter post about the glitch in Microsoft Windows. She set up her system for an update, but unfortunately, her laptop could not support it and crashed. Fatima further told FoEJ Media that, as the team leader, she could not afford to halt her work and had to rush to the office. “My system could not support the update; it crashed, and I had to run to my office immediately,” she said.
When talking about the inconveniences she faced, Fatima told FoEJ Media that she had a sore throat and had to travel 2.5 hours to reach her office. Unfortunately, it rained on her way, and her health deteriorated further. “I had a sore throat, and it rained; I started feeling feverish,” Fatima said.
Fatima said that her entire day went in vain and she could not lead her team, as a result of which she’s expected to work extra on Monday. “My entire day went travelling; I could not do anything, and my team could not meet the target,” she added.
“I could not Earn Anything on Friday”
Azrah Shah, a resident of Kashmir and a freelance writer, told FoEJ Media over the phone how she could not write her article on Friday and ended up earning nothing on Friday.
According to Shah’s company policy, she gets paid on a daily basis after submitting her article. On Friday, her system crashed and she could not do her work. Shah tried using her phone’s wordpad, but it took too long for her to complete the article, as a result of which she could not submit it.
“My system crashed; I could not write anything and could not earn anything on Friday,” Shah said.
She further told FoEJ Media that she has a migraine, and typing on her phone’s wordpad gave her a severe headache. “My migraine triggered while typing on the phone; my head hurt the entire day,” Shah said.
Technical advancement is undoubtedly bliss, but isn’t it scary too? Our entire lives revolve around technology, and a single glitch stopped the world. The Window Tech glitch rolled out a big question: Is technological advancement a development or a regression to human capacity?
