Global tech outage reaches Atlantic Canada, affects Newfoundland health-care services

ST. JOHN’S, N.L. — A global technology disruption spread to parts of Atlantic Canada Friday morning, affecting the government of Newfoundland and Labrador’s online services and health-care information systems.

Canada’s easternmost province issued a news release warning that residents attempting to use its online platforms may hit a snag because of the outage. In a separate release, the province’s health authority said its main information system used to manage patient and financial data was hit.

“This interruption in service is expected to impact the availability of some health-care services,” the health authority said. “NL Health Services has implemented contingency plans and is focused on the delivery of emergency care as we work with our global partners to resolve the outage.”

The outage grounded flights, knocked banks off-line and media outlets off air in a massive disruption affecting companies and services worldwide on Friday. Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike said that the issue was linked to a “defect” found in an update for Windows, and 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.

Airports in major Atlantic Canadian cities urged passengers to check with their airlines for up-to-date flight information as several carriers were affected.

In Halifax, the Stanfield International Airport said Friday morning its online flight information board was having problems, but the issue was resolved as of about 10 a.m. A spokesperson for the airport said a small percentage of flights were affected, adding that it expected regular updates from airlines throughout the day.

The airport in Charlottetown advised that its flight board may not be up to date, and it posted to social media asking passengers to get information directly from their airlines instead.

The St. John’s International Airport made a similar request.

Halifax Transit said there were technical issues using saved payment methods to buy tickets on the HXGO app; however, passengers could still use unsaved debit and credit cards, Apple Pay, and Google Pay.

The Halifax Regional Municipality said its internal IT and municipal systems were functioning without problems.

Meanwhile, New Brunswick’s two health authorities reporters no problems, neither did the government of Prince Edward Island.

Microsoft 365 said on X that the company was “working on rerouting the impacted traffic to alternate systems to alleviate impact” and that it was “observing a positive trend in service availability.”

In a statement on its website, CrowdStrike said it was “actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 19, 2024.

The Canadian Press