Last week’s unprecedented Crowdstrike IT failure continues to create issues at airports, while Microsoft scrambles to rollout a tool to fix the 8.5 million affected devices. CrowdStrike, a security program that serves Windows host systems, offered a corrupted update on Friday, which threw the world into chaos. The glitch impacted airline travel, banking institutions, television broadcast networks, police services, shipping and delivery systems, stock markets and hospital communications. Thousands of flights worldwide, including in the UK, US and Canada, were cancelled since Friday’s global cyber outage. Data from flight tracker FlightAware shows on Monday alone US airline Delta cancelled 709 flights, in addition to more than 5,000 cancelled since Friday. On Sunday, the airline had 33% of its flights cancelled, and of those still running, 44% were delayed. Delta’s latest cancellations impacted flights in and out of five Canadian airports in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal. A total of 17 WestJet flights, 3%, were cancelled, and 42, 8%, we delayed. As for Air Canada, 6, 1%, were cancelled and 53, 9%, were delayed, and Air Canada Rouge, 2, 1%, were cancelled and 24, 16%, delayed. In total, as of Monday morning, there were 1,338 cancellation worldwide, 882 impacting US travel, and 20,647 worldwide delays. When the outage first hit on Friday, Toronto’s Porter Airlines cancelled the majority of flights, and the “vast majority” of arrivals and departures between Canada and the US out of Calgary, Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal. Montreal’s Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport on Saturday said “operations have returned to normal … but flights operated by affected airlines may still be subject to schedule changes,” per the National Post. Vancouver International Airport told the publication the issue is now resolved — while acknowledging it continues to interfere with flights out of Vancouver and other North American airports. Delta CEO Ed Bastian told customers in an email the airline’s systems were impacted by the Microsoft bug. “In particular one of our crew tracking-related tools was affected and unable to effectively process the unprecedented number of changes triggered by the system shutdown," wrote Bastian, per the CBC. The airline would "tactically adjust" flight schedules as safety permits, he added. US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg weighed in on the issue. “Delta must provide prompt refunds to consumers who choose not to take rebooking, free rebooking for those who do, and timely reimbursements for food and hotel stays to consumers affected by these delays and cancellations, as well as adequate customer service assistance," said Buttigieg."No one should be stranded at an airport overnight or stuck on hold for hours waiting to talk to an customer service agent."IT media group Tech Radar has dubbed the epic Microsoft failure “Y2K24,” and argues it’s “so much worse than the real Y2,” when tech specialists were worried when year 2000 rolled around, there would be a great computer glitch because computers weren’t programed past 1999. Microsoft is the most common desktop operating system, with a total of 72% of desktop users running Microsoft Windows. Tech Radar analysts call for “mitigation steps” to avoid such an epic glitch from occurring again. For example, “diversifying cloud-based providers beyond one dominant service.”“Y2K was always real; it just took 24 years to arrive,” the publication asserts. On Saturday, Microsoft VP David Weston confirmed “8.5 million Windows devices” were impacted by the faulty CrowdStrike update. Weston noted that number is “less than 1% of all Windows machines.” “While the percentage was small, the broad economic and societal impacts reflect the use of CrowdStrike by enterprises that run many critical services,” wrote Weston, per the National Post. In Canada’s health sector, systems in Edmonton, Toronto, BC and Newfoundland were interrupted, which resulted in 911 lines being interrupted and BC medical workers switching to paper rather than digital documentation. By Saturday, Edmonton 911 operators confirmed lines have been restored, and provincial organizations in Toronto and Newfoundland and Labrador Health Network announced regular operations have resumed, the Canadian Press reported. The Toronto University Health Network “is returning to regular operation after the global IT outage. We expect no additional appointment delays,” wrote the organization on its website.
Last week’s unprecedented Crowdstrike IT failure continues to create issues at airports, while Microsoft scrambles to rollout a tool to fix the 8.5 million affected devices. CrowdStrike, a security program that serves Windows host systems, offered a corrupted update on Friday, which threw the world into chaos. The glitch impacted airline travel, banking institutions, television broadcast networks, police services, shipping and delivery systems, stock markets and hospital communications. Thousands of flights worldwide, including in the UK, US and Canada, were cancelled since Friday’s global cyber outage. Data from flight tracker FlightAware shows on Monday alone US airline Delta cancelled 709 flights, in addition to more than 5,000 cancelled since Friday. On Sunday, the airline had 33% of its flights cancelled, and of those still running, 44% were delayed. Delta’s latest cancellations impacted flights in and out of five Canadian airports in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal. A total of 17 WestJet flights, 3%, were cancelled, and 42, 8%, we delayed. As for Air Canada, 6, 1%, were cancelled and 53, 9%, were delayed, and Air Canada Rouge, 2, 1%, were cancelled and 24, 16%, delayed. In total, as of Monday morning, there were 1,338 cancellation worldwide, 882 impacting US travel, and 20,647 worldwide delays. When the outage first hit on Friday, Toronto’s Porter Airlines cancelled the majority of flights, and the “vast majority” of arrivals and departures between Canada and the US out of Calgary, Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal. Montreal’s Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport on Saturday said “operations have returned to normal … but flights operated by affected airlines may still be subject to schedule changes,” per the National Post. Vancouver International Airport told the publication the issue is now resolved — while acknowledging it continues to interfere with flights out of Vancouver and other North American airports. Delta CEO Ed Bastian told customers in an email the airline’s systems were impacted by the Microsoft bug. “In particular one of our crew tracking-related tools was affected and unable to effectively process the unprecedented number of changes triggered by the system shutdown," wrote Bastian, per the CBC. The airline would "tactically adjust" flight schedules as safety permits, he added. US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg weighed in on the issue. “Delta must provide prompt refunds to consumers who choose not to take rebooking, free rebooking for those who do, and timely reimbursements for food and hotel stays to consumers affected by these delays and cancellations, as well as adequate customer service assistance," said Buttigieg."No one should be stranded at an airport overnight or stuck on hold for hours waiting to talk to an customer service agent."IT media group Tech Radar has dubbed the epic Microsoft failure “Y2K24,” and argues it’s “so much worse than the real Y2,” when tech specialists were worried when year 2000 rolled around, there would be a great computer glitch because computers weren’t programed past 1999. Microsoft is the most common desktop operating system, with a total of 72% of desktop users running Microsoft Windows. Tech Radar analysts call for “mitigation steps” to avoid such an epic glitch from occurring again. For example, “diversifying cloud-based providers beyond one dominant service.”“Y2K was always real; it just took 24 years to arrive,” the publication asserts. On Saturday, Microsoft VP David Weston confirmed “8.5 million Windows devices” were impacted by the faulty CrowdStrike update. Weston noted that number is “less than 1% of all Windows machines.” “While the percentage was small, the broad economic and societal impacts reflect the use of CrowdStrike by enterprises that run many critical services,” wrote Weston, per the National Post. In Canada’s health sector, systems in Edmonton, Toronto, BC and Newfoundland were interrupted, which resulted in 911 lines being interrupted and BC medical workers switching to paper rather than digital documentation. By Saturday, Edmonton 911 operators confirmed lines have been restored, and provincial organizations in Toronto and Newfoundland and Labrador Health Network announced regular operations have resumed, the Canadian Press reported. The Toronto University Health Network “is returning to regular operation after the global IT outage. We expect no additional appointment delays,” wrote the organization on its website.
