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 warned residents attempting to use its online platforms that they may hit a snag because of the outage. The province’s health authority said its main information system to manage patient and financial data was hit.

But by Friday afternoon, the Meditech information system was back online, and other services including cancer care and medical imaging had resumed, Newfoundland and Labrador Health Services said.

The outage grounded flights, knocked banks off-line and media outlets off air in a massive disruption affecting companies and services worldwide. 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.

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 reported 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.