Hospitals in B.C. had to switch to using pen and paper to manage their records and scheduling as a global IT outage caused widespread disruptions around the world.
The outage, traced to a software outage from the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, also disrupted multiple other industries including airports, government agencies and media outlets, including the CBC.
The company said the disruptions were caused by a faulty update to computers running Microsoft Windows.
The province’s Ministry of Health confirmed the disruption to its networks and computers across B.C.
All five regional health authorities echoed that message, saying that “contingency plans” were in place to ensure that health-care services remain operational while asking residents to avoid calling hospital switchboards.
People were instead urged to contact their care providers Friday if they have questions about appointments or services.
The B.C. health system has been impacted by the global Crowdstrike disruption, which is impacting our networks and computers. We have implemented contingency plans to ensure that our services remain operational, and that patient care is not disrupted to the best of our ability. <a href=”https://t.co/KpEumFWuWN”>pic.twitter.com/KpEumFWuWN</a>
—@PHSAofBC
In an unrelated news conference Friday, Health Minister Adrian Dix said the disruption impacted about 50,000 devices across B.C. — more than 30,000 of them in Vancouver Coastal Health and Fraser Health in B.C.’s Lower Mainland.
According to the company, their Falcon Sensor software is causing systems to crash, displaying the blue error screen known informally as the “blue screen of death.” The issue has sent systems into a recovery loop, preventing them from restarting and disrupting operations across various sectors.
Canadians are waking up to a global tech outage disrupting operations in multiple industries. Cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike’s Falcon Sensor software is causing Microsoft Windows to crash and display a blue error screen. Cybersecurity and tech analyst Ritesh Kotak explains how the outage is impacting devices subscribed to Crowdstrike and what mitigation actions Microsoft might be taking.
The software glitch meant hospital staff had to pivot to work on pen and paper, said Dix, as records for services such as scheduling, lab work and dietary orders could no longer be logged online.
“Our team worked through the night to protect patient care, whether it’s ensuring what people get for breakfast in the morning…to diagnostic tests, to lab work, to the work done scheduling surgeries, all of that briefly went to paper and back,” he added.
Providing a brief update on the system crash during the same news conference, B.C. Premier David Eby confirmed emergency management and climate response programs across the province remained fully operational and unaffected, including the B.C. Wildlife Service, which reported no operational setbacks.
“[It] is very positive news given the challenging wildfire situation we’re in currently and that it looks to get worse over the next few days,” he said.
No impact on police, 911 services
The RCMP and the Vancouver Police Department also reported no impact on their systems and indicated that no other police force in the province had been affected by the outage.
According to the premier, ECOMM, the 911 dispatch operators, reported no disruptions despite emergency lines being affected in other jurisdictions across North America.
However, Eby said calls to the Ministry of Children and Family Development experienced slight delays on Friday morning.
B.C. Emergency Health Services says its systems have not had any “significant impacts” but is continuing to monitor the situation.
U.S.-bound flights affected: YVR
The outage has predominantly impacted U.S.-based carriers such as United Airlines and American Airlines, resulting in numerous cancellations and delays. Toronto-based Porter Airlines, which operates flights across Canada and to some U.S. locations, has also been affected, cancelling all flights until at least 3 p.m. Friday.
WestJet and Air Canada remain operational.
According to Vancouver International Airport, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has been experiencing significant issues due to the outage, affecting some U.S.-bound flights from YVR.
YVR is urging travellers with U.S. itineraries to check their flight status with their airline before heading to the airport.
The Victoria Airport remains unaffected.
“From a global perspective, the impact in Canada is pretty minimal compared to what happened in other parts of the world,” said aviation consultant Duncan Dee, pointing to widespread disarray and what some observers described as chaos at airports in parts of Europe and Asia.
Meanwhile, the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) reported a partial outage of its telephone reporting system, used primarily by small aircraft passengers and boaters, which has since been resolved. CBSA noted that no other systems are currently affected.
TransLink also confirmed that it has not experienced any service disruptions due to the outage.
Some difficulties for banking, telecommunications
The Canadian Bankers Association also says it has been “reviewing” the situation.
DownDetector, a website that tracks user-reported internet outages, recorded growing outages in services Friday morning at Scotiabank, the Royal Bank, Bank of Montreal, TD Canada Trust and other financial institutions.
“Canadians can be reassured that our country has a well-protected banking system. Any current impact on banking services would be temporary,” said the banker association’s media relations manager, Maggie Cheung.
Meanwhile, one major Canadian telecommunications carrier had some difficulties due to the outage. Some Telus employees were unable to access “the tools and systems necessary to support our customers,” a spokeswoman said Friday.
Bell and Rogers, two of the other major carriers, said their networks were unaffected.
In addition, Canada Post said a small number of post offices across the country appeared to be affected by the outage, calling the impact to customers “minimal.”
CrowdStrike says it’s working to get systems restored
“CrowdStrike continues to work closely with impacted customers and partners to ensure that all systems are restored.” company CEO George Kurtz said in a message posted to social media.
Kurtz says the system failure was caused by a defect in a single content update for Windows hosts. Mac and Linux hosts are not affected.
“This is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed.”
All of CrowdStrike continues to work closely with impacted customers and partners to ensure that all systems are restored.<br><br>I’m sharing the letter I sent to CrowdStrike’s customers and partners. As this incident is resolved, you have my commitment to provide full transparency on…
—@George_Kurtz
Microsoft said on Friday that the underlying cause of the outages of its 365 apps and services has been fixed, but the residual impact of cybersecurity outages is continuing to affect some customers.
Tech analyst Carmi Levy says it’s “ironic” that the company trusted to protect systems was responsible for a global outage.
“It is almost like I put on my bike helmet before I go for a ride, and it actually causes a head injury because I wore it,” he told CBC’s BC Today.
However, Levy says the outage is a stark reminder for everyone not to take technology for granted and to appreciate it when it is working.
“We assume they will work all the time and most of the time…it’s incredibly reliable, but we remember, of course, the one time when this cascading failure brings it all down.”