RBI on global Microsoft outage: Indian banks insulated, only minor disruptions

RBI assessment revealed that around 10 banks and non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) experienced minor disruptions.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said that it has conducted a thorough assessment to estimate the impact of this outage on its regulated entities in the wake of a widespread outage in Microsoft. The assessment revealed that around 10 banks and non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) experienced minor disruptions that have either been resolved or are currently being addressed, RBI said.

A police officer walks past the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) logo inside its headquarters in Mumbai, India.(Reuters)

Critical systems of most banks are not hosted in the cloud and only a handful have adopted the CrowdStrike tool for cybersecurity, the central bank said. It also issued an advisory to its regulated entities, urging them to take proactive measures to maintain operational resilience and continuity.

The RBI said, “Overall, the Indian financial sector in the Reserve Bank’s domain remains insulated from the global outage.” Global IT systems were disrupted and various sectors were impacted worldwide including aviation.

The widespread Microsoft outage disrupted operations across diverse sectors, including aviation, media, and financial markets globally. In India, Akasa, IndiGo, Air India, and SpiceJet encountered operational challenges amid the outage. In the US, carriers including Frontier Airlines, Allegiant and SunCountry reported disruptions affecting their services.