Hospitals worldwide are grappling with significant disruptions due to a Microsoft system outage that began on Thursday, July 18.
A survey conducted by Bloomberg on Friday, July 19, revealed that many hospitals are being forced to delay medical procedures and resort to manual workarounds for tasks typically managed digitally. The outage has made it difficult for hospitals to book patient appointments and access medical records, resulting in delays for procedures requiring anesthesia, cancellations of elective procedures, and closures of outpatient clinics.
In New Hampshire, the 911 emergency services were unable to answer incoming calls during the outage, though services have since been restored.
Hospitals have had to deploy staff to handle tasks usually managed by digital self-check-in systems, resort to using paper records and telephones, and prepare paper patient records.
CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz stated in a Friday post on X (formerly Twitter) that the outage was caused by “a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts.” He clarified that Mac and Linux hosts were not affected and emphasized that this incident was neither a security breach nor a cyberattack.
In a subsequent post around noon Eastern Time on Friday, Kurtz added, “All of CrowdStrike continues to work closely with impacted customers and partners to ensure that all systems are restored.”
Kurtz also addressed the situation in a blog post on the CrowdStrike website, advising vigilance and directing customers to engage with official CrowdStrike representatives for updates. He noted that adversaries might attempt to exploit such events and emphasized using the company’s blog and technical support for the latest information.
The software update disruption has affected computer systems in businesses and public services globally. Alan Woodward, a professor of cybersecurity at Surrey University, described the incident as “unprecedented,” predicting a substantial economic impact.
Other companies affected by the outage include UPS and FedEx, both of which issued warnings on their websites about potential delays in package deliveries due to the software disruption.
