Airports, hospitals in Canada begin returning to normal after global IT outage

Airports, hospitals and police services across Canada continued their gradual return to normal operations on Saturday as they recovered from a global technology outage caused by a defective update to computers using Microsoft Windows. 

And as systems around the world continued to come back online, one security expert warned Canadians can expect more disruptions down the road unless industry practices change.

Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike said Friday’s glitch felt round the world occurred when it deployed a faulty update to computers running Microsoft Windows, adding the resulting outage was not a security incident or cyberattack.

Microsoft released a statement on its official blog on Saturday revealing the extent of the impact on customers.

“We currently estimate that CrowdStrike’s update affected 8.5 million Windows devices, or less than one percent of all Windows machines,” wrote David Weston, a company vice-president in charge of operating system security. “While the percentage was small, the broad economic and societal impacts reflect the use of CrowdStrike by enterprises that run many critical services. 

In Canada, air travellers bore the brunt of that impact. Passengers with Porter Airlines saw many of their flights cancelled on Friday, and the vast majority of arrivals and departures between Canada and the U.S. at airports in Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary and Montreal were postponed or called off.

Montreal’s Trudeau airport issued a statement on Saturday saying “operations have returned to normal … but flights operated by affected airlines may still be subject to schedule changes.”

A spokesperson for the Vancouver International Airport told The Canadian Press the now-resolved outage continues to disrupt flights across North America, including airlines operating out of the Vancouver airport.

The glitch also reared its head in the Canadian health care sector. Staff at British Columbia’s hospitals and health facilities had to pivot to paper to manage everything from lab work to meal orders during the outage.

By Saturday, health-care organizations like Toronto’s University Health Network and the provincial health authority in Newfoundland and Labrador all announced regular operations had been restored.

“UHN is returning to regular operation after the global IT outage. We expect no additional appointment delays,” reads a message on the University Health Network’s website. 

Meanwhile in Edmonton, police say 911 lines have been restored after a major disruption to emergency communications.

Cybersecurity expert Steve Waterhouse says the global outage should serve as a wake-up call for Canadian organizations and companies.

“It is of utmost significance because it has paralyzed so many sectors of our economy, of our society,” he said, warning there are more potential outages on the horizon stemming either from issues with another cybersecurity firm like CrowdStrike or different kinds of software.

Waterhouse said the centralization of everything from data storage to email over the past few decades has led to systemic vulnerabilities when things go awry. 

“Organizations, public or private, have to redo their homework in properly managing the risks of not having access to the computing services that are remotely centralized,” he said, comparing a back-up plan to keeping candles in the cupboard in case the power goes out.