CrowdStrike outage: Canadian flights and healthcare disrupted after faulty update
Dozens of Canadian flights and several hospitals across the country Business was disrupted on Friday due to a global technology outage that grounded planes and impacted banks and other businesses around the world.
CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity company said Friday that the problem occurred after a faulty update on computers running Microsoft Windows and the problem was being resolved.
“This is not a security incident or a cyberattack,” the U.S.-based company said. said in a statement posted on its website.
“We understand the seriousness of the situation and are deeply sorry for the inconvenience and disruption,” he added.
“We are working with all affected customers to ensure that systems are back up and running and can deliver the services their customers rely on.”
CrowdStrike said Mac and Linux hosts were not affected.
The company provides cybersecurity services to thousands of clients around the world.
As of 12:30 p.m. ET, about 100 flights scheduled to depart from Canada have been cancelled, according to Cirium, an aviation analytics firm. That does not include flights to Canada.
More than half of the flights (56) canceled Friday were from Toronto-based Porter Airlines, which said it had canceled all flights through 3 p.m. ET.
“Passengers cannot be rerouted when systems are offline,” Porter Airlines said in a statement.
Meanwhile, at least five Air Canada flights, 11 WestJet flights and two Flair Airlines flights were cancelled as of noon Friday, according to Cirium.
Toronto Pearson International Airport said the third-party computer outage continues to affect some airlines.
“Travelers may notice that the terminals are busier than usual this morning as we expect to connect 135,000 passengers today,” he said in a message on X.
A spokesperson for the Calgary Airport Authority told Global News they expect “delays and cancellations” at YYC due to the global outage, but so far the impact has been minimal.
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Some flights to and from Vancouver International Airport were also affected, the airport said.
Air Canada told Global News in an emailed statement that there was no “major impact” on its operations and that it was monitoring the situation closely.
NAV Canada, the country’s air navigation service provider, said its systems were not affected.
“We are working closely with our industry partners to understand how we can best support their operations and passengers,” it’s written on X.
Passengers are pictured traveling at Toronto Pearson International Airport on July 19, 2024.
Rob Ford/Global News
Calgary-based WestJet issued a statement saying it expected delays on its network due to the global disruption.
“At this time, there has been no direct impact to WestJet’s IT systems or operations and flight cancellations across our network are not related to the CrowdStrike outage,” WestJet said.
DownDectector, which tracks user-reported internet service disruptions, found that airlines, payment platforms and online shopping sites around the world were affected – though the disruption appears to be piecemeal and is apparently linked to whether or not companies use Microsoft’s cloud services.
Microsoft 365 posted on social media platform X that the company was “working to redirect impacted traffic to alternative systems to mitigate the impact” and that it was “observing a positive trend in service availability.”
Banks, hospitals and media affected
The outage also affected banks, hospitals, mail delivery and media outlets in various countries.
Several health services in Ontario, British Columbia, Manitoba and Newfoundland and Labrador were affected on Friday.
The Canadian Press said the CrowdStrike outage on Windows had already disrupted some of its services, including wired content and all audio and photo streaming, before they were restored.
On Friday, Australian media outlets, where telecommunications have been severely affected, were suspended for hours.
Banks in South Africa and New Zealand have reported outages of their payment systems or websites and apps.
The Canadian Banking Association said “any current impact on banking services would be temporary.”
“Like many other businesses, Canadian banks are reviewing the situation based on updates from their technology partners,” spokesperson Maggie Cheung told Global News.
“Canadians can rest assured that our country has a well-protected banking system.”
Meanwhile, a Canada Post spokesperson told Global News that “a small number of post offices across the country appear to be impacted.”
“We are assessing the situation across our network, but the impact to customers appears to be minimal at this time,” the spokesperson said.
How did the failure occur?
CrowdStrike is one of the world’s largest cybersecurity companies, developing software to help businesses detect and prevent hacks.
CrowdStrike said there was an issue with a Falcon Sensor software update that led to a bug check or blue screen error on Windows hosts.
“This is the result of software being deployed that perhaps wasn’t adequately tested and created an issue,” Jennifer Quaid, executive director of the Canadian Cyber Threat Exchange, said in an interview with Global News.
Kwasi Boakye-Boateng, research team leader at the Canadian Institute for Cybersecurity, said such software bugs are common enough, but the scale of the disruption is not.
“It actually gained a lot of traction because CrowdStrike has a lot of customers,” he told Global News in an interview.
Quaid said businesses are vulnerable because they are 100% dependent on systems, which are completely interdependent and connected to each other.
— with reporting from Craig Lord, Nathaniel Dove, Kathryn Mannie, Katie Dangerfield and the Associated Press of Global News
