Overview of the Service Outage
Dalal Street traders experienced significant disruptions on Friday due to a major service outage. The issue stemmed from a technical glitch involving Microsoft and Crowdstrike antivirus software, impacting several brokerage firms.
Impact on Brokerage Firms
Many brokerage firms, including 5paisa and IIFL Securities, reported that their systems were affected by the Microsoft issue. Parth Nyati, Founder of Tradingo, explained the situation: “An anti-virus Crowdstrike faced a technical glitch after an update that affected the Microsoft servers and PCs where this anti-virus was installed. This anti-virus is also installed on Microsoft servers provided by Azure as a part of their cloud infrastructure. Azure accounts for 25% market share amongst cloud services. Hence, a lot of large organizations, airlines, and stock exchanges globally who use Azure had technical glitches. The Crowdstrike team is currently working to resolve the issue.”
Responses from Key Players
| Brokerage Firm | Response |
|---|---|
| Nuvama | “We have witnessed a limited impact, as our networks are built to minimize the effects of such outages on our ecosystem. We have deployed a software patch in our back office and settlement functions and reported the same to the exchanges.” |
| IIFL Securities | “There is a global issue with Crowdstrike Antivirus protection software which we have installed on our servers and endpoints. This has caused systems and servers to reboot and blue dump. This is a global issue as confirmed by Crowdstrike and all major companies using this software are facing this issue. 360 one is also experiencing this issue. We are working towards mitigation on a war footing and will update shortly on the next status. You might face rate refresh issues and order placement issues in our Mobile App and Web. Our technical team is working to resolve the same. Inconvenience caused is highly regretted.” |
| 5Paisa Capital | 5Paisa Capital informed its users on the X platform: “You might face rate refresh issues and order placement issues in our Mobile App and Web. Our technical team is working to resolve the same. Inconvenience caused is highly regretted.” |
Traders’ Reactions
Upset traders took to social media platforms to express their frustrations and seek compensation from brokers for their losses. They complained about being unable to sell positions due to the app showing no pending orders. One user tweeted: “Hey NSE and BSE @NSEIndia @BSEIndia Who is responsible for the losses I and others made because of your glitch or just you know how to increase taxes? Even the broker firms are not picking calls and no reply? @AngelOne @zerodhaonline”
Conclusion
The outage caused by the Crowdstrike and Microsoft glitch highlights the vulnerabilities in the infrastructure that supports financial markets. The responses from brokerage firms show their efforts to mitigate the impact and reassure their clients. However, the incident also underscores the need for robust contingency plans to handle such disruptions in the future.