Windows Global Crash, Schrödinger's YouTube and Russian Xbox
What a week! Over the past seven days, only the most resilient services have not broken down or crashed. Either magnetic storms or a bad horoscope have seriously frayed the nerves of IT companies around the world. Magazines and specialized sites were full of headlines about mass failures here and there, and all we could do was bend our fingers.
My name is Oleg Malakhov, I work at AGIMA, and in the next digest of the most high-profile news of the last week we will try to list everything that broke and was fixed (but this is not a fact yet).
Massive crash in Windows systems
The whole world experienced a major stress yesterday – Microsoft's cloud computing platform Azure said “bye” and left the chat. This caused a failure in the work of a huge number of devices with the Windows operating system. This effectively stopped the normal work of airports, airlines, TV channels, banks, payment systems, hospitals, hotels on all continents.
Several TV channels, such as the UK's Sky News, suspended broadcasts or at least experienced difficulties. According to analysts at Cirium, at least 1,400 flights were delayed worldwide. Many Microsoft services were unavailable, and users around the world reported “blue screens of death.”
It turned out that reason for failure — installed CrowdStrike Falcon Sensor protection systems that block cyberattacks. At the same time, Russia did not feel the consequences of the general IT apocalypse. But the Ministry of Digital Development was quick to remind how important it is to engage in import substitution.
Vedomosti reports the details.
Xiaomi Massive Outage
But when mass failures had not yet become mainstream, Xiaomi users began reporting breakdowns and problems. At the beginning of the week, Chinese smartphones began to behave strangely, and specifically in Russia: they rebooted endlessly or simply did not turn on.
Something went wrong with the Mi Home app, which unites all Xiaomi devices into one ecosystem. In particular, Downdetector data spoke about all these passions. What caused the problem – we do not know.
Developers left without Autodesk
Autodesk is an American company that creates cloud solutions for the needs of builders and architects. At the beginning of the week, the corporation blocked the accounts of Russian developers, and they lost the design documentation for our new comfort-class residential complexes. In essence, this means that builders who worked in Autodesk services will now take longer to build.
At the same time, the services were already unavailable in Russia. In 2022, Autodesk announced its withdrawal from Russia, in March of this year it banned Russian companies from using its software, and last year it closed its local legal entity. But some companies continued to work with Autodesk via VPN or through third countries.
When you don't understand hints.
RBC reports on the consequences.
YouTube is leaving Russia. Or is it staying?
Since last week, the entire Internet has been trying to figure out whether YouTube will leave Russia or not. First, Rostelecom reported that the speed of video downloads would drop because Google's equipment had apparently worn out and could no longer handle it. Against this background, rumors began to spread that the video hosting service would be blocked in September so that we could enjoy Russian analogues.
Then politicians and experts started to declare that nothing would be blocked and that no one would notice a decrease in download speed. And everything was great.
Read here a bunch of refutations, confirmations and opinions.
Malware found in Russian push-button phones
Everything is great in this news. There is a Russian brand called Digma. They produce and sell various types of equipment, including push-button phones. So, security experts have found a built-in vulnerability in these mobile phones, and this vulnerability allows you to control the phone via the Internet: create accounts for a phone number, send SMS, receive SMS, etc.
But the main thing we learned from this article is that Digma phones occupy almost 6% of the market, and their sales are growing. Did they finally bring back my 2007?
Kommersant reports the details.
Russia has begun discussing its own gaming consoles
At the end of last week, the government held a meeting at which representatives of IT companies and enterprises discussed the idea of creating Russian gaming consoles – essentially, analogues competitors of Xbox and PlayStation. We are talking about consoles that will run on the Aurora operating system. Rostelecom will be in charge of this whole thing, and various other companies will help.
And again, Kommersant has all the details.
___
That's it, bye everyone, thank you all for your attention. If you decide to read something else over the weekend, then here is a normal article about Etdc. And if you are already tired of reading, and you are also a product analyst (just in case) – then here One Two Prod podcast episode.
P.S. Feel free to write your opinion about the news in the comments. It is very interesting to read.
