KUALA LUMPUR – The Microsoft cloud services outage, which affected major sectors around the world, has dealt a significant blow to Malaysian businesses and industries, said the National Cyber Security Agency (Nacsa).
The agency under the National Security Council said that while operational disruptions have been reported in key areas here, including those involving airlines and banking industries, the issue should not be seen as a cyberattack.
“This is not a cyberattack, but it is a significant cybersecurity issue. The impact of this outage on Malaysia is considerable. It has caused delays and operational challenges across multiple sectors, affecting both businesses and the public.
“We are actively monitoring the situation and working with relevant stakeholders to mitigate the impact and restore normal operations as swiftly as possible,” the spokesperson said in a response to Scoop.
The spokesperson added that Nacsa is in the process of gathering more detailed statistics, with further updates to be provided to the public once additional information is obtained.
“Nacsa is committed to ensuring the security and resilience of our national cyber infrastructure. We will continue to provide support and guidance to affected organisations during this challenging time.”
They also noted that the operations of certain budget airlines have been affected, leading to manual check-ins and extended waiting times, while banks are also facing system outages resulting in disrupted transactions and impaired customer service.
In a statement, Malaysia Aviation Group confirmed that flight schedules for flag-carrier Malaysia Airlines and budget carrier Firefly remain unaffected, with no flights cancelled due to the service outage.
However, Firefly’s booking and online check-in systems were impacted by the issue.
Earlier today, Nacsa chief executive Megat Zuhairy Megat Tajuddin told Scoop that the outage is “not a cyberattack” as it is instead a cybersecurity issue related to an update rolled out by American cybersecurity technology company CrowdStrike Holdings Inc.
It is understood that issues with the update involving the company, which provides penetration workload and endpoint security, threat intelligence and cyberattack services, have caused Windows to crash and “bootloop”, a problem where computing devices are unable to complete regular booting sequences.
CNBC earlier reported that Microsoft had announced the restoration of its cloud services after warning customers in the Central US region about potential issues with several Azure services and the Microsoft 365 suite, including problems with service management operations, connectivity, and service availability.
Microsoft reportedly said it had identified the root cause of the outage and managed to restore the majority of affected services. Nevertheless, the company noted that some customers may still face issues.
The outage among Windows 10 users, which has affected various Microsoft 365 services, including Teams, saw users encountering blue screen errors with their laptops or PCs stuck in a restart loop.
Besides airlines and banks, telecommunication companies, TV and radio broadcasters, supermarkets and hospitals have also reported global disruptions. – July 19, 2024