Widespread tech outage affects Canadian airports, hospitals and border crossings
CTV
A global technology outage grounded flights, disrupted hospitals and backed up border crossings in Canada on Friday, as issues persisted hours after problems with Microsoft services were said to be getting fixed.
A global technology outage grounded flights, disrupted hospitals and backed up border crossings in Canada on Friday, as issues persisted hours after problems with Microsoft services were said to be getting fixed.
Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike said the problem occurred when it deployed a faulty update to computers running Microsoft Windows – and that the outage was not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue affected Microsoft 365 apps and services, and escalating disruptions continued after the technology company said it was gradually fixing the problem.
Brent Arnold, a Toronto-based cybersecurity and technology lawyer, called it a software update gone wrong.
"This may be, I think, the biggest scale one that we've seen," said Arnold, a partner at law firm Gowling WLG.
Toronto Pearson International Airport and Montréal–Trudeau International Airport both said the outage could lead to flight delays and cancellations.
Porter Airlines said it was cancelling its flights until 12 p.m. ET due to the outage.
Andrew Breeding, who was scheduled to fly Porter home to Los Angeles on Friday after a business trip to Toronto, said his flight out of the city's Billy Bishop Airport had been rescheduled for later in the day.
