A software update led to a worldwide information technology outage, wreaking havoc on major industries, from travel to health care and finance, even causing problems for athletes ahead of the Olympic Games.
Systems running Microsoft Windows crashed on Thursday evening, after a content update from cybersecurity software CrowdStrike.
“We are working hard to provide comprehensive and continuous updates with our global customers as quickly as possible,” according to a statement on CrowdStrike’s website. They assured customers that the glitch was not a security incident or cyberattack.
How are Canadians being affected by the outage?
Health care
Some health services across the country faced problems with their systems that were connected to the CrowdStrike outage. University Health Network in Toronto posted an advisory on its website.
“Clinical activity continues although some delays are possible. In instances where an appointment may need to be rescheduled, patients will be contacted directly by their care team,” it said.
Newfoundland and Labrador Health Services also had similar issues, saying on its site that “several IT systems are currently affected, including Meditech, the main information system used to manage patient care and finance information.”
“This interruption in service is expected to impact the availability of some health-care services,” the statement continued. “Regular updates will be provided as more information becomes available.”
Vancouver Coastal Health said that the B.C. health system was also impacted and it would provide updates online. Two hospitals in Ottawa — the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) and Queensway Carleton Hospital — told Global News they had been affected by the outage. A spokesperson from CHEO said they didn’t “anticipate any impact on our services offered to children and their families today.” As for Queensway, a spokesperson said it had returned to regular operations.
Travel
The country’s air navigation service provider Nav Canada was not affected by the outage, it said in a post on social media Friday morning.
“We are working closely with our industry partners to understand how we can best support their operations and passengers,” Nav Canada said.
However, some airlines were forced to cancel or delay flights. Porter announced that travellers would be extending flight cancellations until Friday afternoon “due to third-party systems outages.”
Toronto’s Pearson Airport said Air Canada, WestJet, Sunwing and Flair were still operating as of Friday morning. Terminals at Pearson are “busier than normal,” according to a post on its X account, as they “anticipate connecting 135,000 passengers.”
Some flights affected by the outage were “gradually resuming operations” at Montreal’s Trudeau airport as of 10 a.m. on Friday, according to the airport’s X account.
The Canada Border Services Agency reports it experienced a partial systems outage of its telephone reporting system, primarily used by small aircraft passengers and boaters, which has since been resolved.
It says no CBSA systems are currently affected.
Those hoping to cross the Canada-U.S. border should expect long delays at the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel and at the Ambassador Bridge, Windsor Police said.
“Please avoid both areas if possible,” they said in a a post on X.
Telecommunications
Telecommunications carrier Telus Corp. says some of its employees remain unable to access tools and systems needed for customer support.
It says it is working “with the utmost urgency to bring our systems to full functionality as soon as possible” and apologizes for any inconvenience.
Rogers Communications Inc. says there have been no disruptions to any of its networks, CTV News reported.
Problems for Olympic athletes ‘on the ground’
“Like a lot of organisations, we suffered this global Microsoft outage,” chief organiser Tony Estanguet told reporters, a week before the opening ceremony of the Olympics.
“All of our servers were affected this morning.”
Estanguet added critical IT systems had not been hit but “for operations on the ground, to welcome new athletes, to welcome all the delegations, to issue accreditations, it slows down our operations.”
Thousands of athletes have begun flying into Paris ahead of the opening ceremony, with the newly built Olympic village opening its doors on Thursday.
The organizing committee said in a separate statement the impact of the outage was “limited” overall but it had also complicated the distribution of uniforms to the 45,000 volunteers for the July 26-August 11 event.
What is CrowdStrike?
Known as a dominant supplier of software that protects businesses from ransomware attacks, CrowdStrike was thrust into the spotlight on Friday as it struggled to fix a faulty patch that led to cascading, system-wide failures.
CrowdStrike was founded by former executives of antivirus pioneer McAfee Inc. and launched in 2012. It has grown into the leading maker of a relatively new type of security software that’s considered among the best defences against ransomware and other hacking threats.
The type of software CrowdStrike supplies is separate and distinct from older, more limited types of security software. Traditional antivirus software was useful in the early days of computing and the internet for its ability to hunt for signs of known malware, but it has fallen out of favour as attacks have become more sophisticated. Now, products known as “endpoint detection and response” software that CrowdStrike develops do far more, continually scanning machines for any signs of suspicious activities and automating a response.
But to do this, these programs have to be given access to inspect the very core of computers’ operating systems for security defects. This access gives them the ability to disrupt the very systems they are trying to protect. And it is how Microsoft’s Windows systems came into play in Friday’s outage.
Representatives of Austin, Texas-based CrowdStrike confirmed online reports that a glitchy update was responsible for disabling potentially millions of corporate and government Windows computers around the world and causing the dreaded “blue screen of death.”
Its CEO George Kurtz posted on X, saying that a “fix has been deployed.”
With additional reporting by Bloomberg, Agence France-Presse, Associated Press and Canadian Press
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