PTA confirms global IT outage disrupts Microsoft services in Pakistan

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) confirmed that the global IT outage caused by a faulty update from a cybersecurity provider on Friday also resulted in Microsoft services disruptions for Pakistani consumers. 

The software update by global cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike wreaked havoc on computer systems worldwide, grounding flights, forcing some broadcasters off the air and hitting services from banking to healthcare throughout the globe.

"This outage also affected consumers of Microsoft in Pakistan. The fault forced affected PCs and servers into a recovery boot loop, preventing proper startup. Some internet services are also affected because of this," read a statement released by the PTA.

The telecom authority said that the fault was identified, isolated and fixed as per Crowdstrike’s website. It suggested Microsoft clients update the software from their support portal to restore services.

The cyber outage was caused by an update to a product offered by CrowdStrike, which apparently triggered the issue, affecting customers using Microsoft's Windows Operating System.

Microsoft later said that the issue had been fixed.

Banks and financial services companies from Australia to India and Germany warned customers of disruptions and traders across markets spoke of problems with executing transactions.

"We are having the mother of all global market outages," one trader said.

In Britain, booking systems used by doctors were offline, multiple reports posted on X by medical officials said, while Sky News, one of the country's major news broadcasters was off air, apologising for being unable to transmit live, and soccer club Manchester United said on X that it had to postpone a scheduled release of tickets.