Try turning it off and back on.
Computer systems were disrupted Friday when a faulty software update took down Microsoft programs all over the world.
CrowdStrike, an antivirus software company, issued the worldwide update for Microsoft Windows systems around midnight Friday. The resulting outages upset hospital operations, delayed flights, left companies offline and interrupted banking services.
Locally, Bradford Regional Medical Center and Olean (N.Y.) General Hospital stated in identical Facebook posts that “Like so many, Kaleida Health was initially impacted from an information technology standpoint.”
The post indicated personnel activated an internal command center at around 3 a.m. in order to maintain operations.
“We implemented our normal computer ‘down time’ procedures to ensure safe patient care,” the post shared, adding personnel “have done an incredible job bringing our computer systems back online.” Staff and patients were urged to report as scheduled, with a measure of patience as facilities continued to recover from the outage.
CNN reported Friday morning that CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz said the issue had been identified and a fix deployed. He said as computers were rebooted they were coming back online as normal.
Bradford Regional Airport Manager Alicia Dankesreiter said, “We are operating as usual. If our passengers are connecting in Pittsburgh or (Washington Dulles International Airport), they are likely experiencing delays there.”
Nate Burgett, director of the McKean County Department of Emergency Services, said the 911 Center was affected, but prepared.
“We did see an impact but we are prepared as we have alternate services that are available to us,” he said, adding, “We are also monitoring information from (Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency) when it is available.”
PEMA representatives could not be reached for comment Friday.
Bradford City Fire Department was unaffected by the outage, according to Chief Brett Butler.
Bradford City Police Chief Mike Ward said his department “did receive some warnings first thing this morning regarding potential outages for certain software systems that we use.
“We did experience some minor disruption this morning, but it appears everything that we use is online now and working,” Ward said. “Overall this did not affect any police operations and it was business as usual.”
While CrowdStrike’s Kurtz said the incident was not a security issue or cyber attack, the White House said it is “looking into” the disruption, according to pennlive.com.