Massive service disruptions reported for Windows hosts worldwide including local organizations
CENTRAL COAST REGION, Calif. – A globe-spanning outage of companies as well as services caused by a faulty update for Windows hosts from CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity company, has caused notable impacts across a wide array of industries Friday.
CrowdStrike's President and CEO, George Kurtz posted on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, that the issue Friday was connected to "a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts".
"Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted [by the outage]," added Kurtz. "This is not a security incident or cyberattack."
While a solution has already been issued from CrowdStrike, users that rely on the security software the company provides are still experiencing the ripple effects of the outage across multiple sectors around the world as well as along the Central Coast Region.
Cottage hospital network issued the the following statement in response to Your News Channel's inquiries:
Due to the widespread global technology outage, Cottage Health has activated the backup systems in place to continue care throughout our hospitals.
Cottage hospitals, emergency departments, urgent care clinics and virtual care online remain open.
Patients are advised to continue to seek emergency and urgent care as needed.
Non-urgent elective procedures in our hospitals are being rescheduled for patients who had appointments today (Friday, July 19), to allow more of our staff to support the backup procedures for ongoing inpatient and emergency care.
Christina Cortes, Public Relations Manager - Cottage Health
Your News Channel also reached out to Dignity Health's (the managing company for Marian Regional Medical Center, Arroyo Grande Community Hospital, and French Hospital Medical Center) Marketing Specialist Joe Bailey who stated, "Like many other organizations and industries, some facilities within Dignity Health have been affected by the global IT outage affecting computer systems caused by a third party software update. We continue to provide safe, high-quality care to our patients and thank everyone for their patience as our teams take immediate action to restore any impacted systems. Patients will be
contacted directly if their appointments are affected."
Santa Barbara Airport issued a travel notice at 10:31 a.m. warning the IT issue has impacted some flights, but that the most accurate information will come directly from individual airlines.
The Santa Barbara County Superior Court's Court Executive Officer Darrel E. Parker explained, "Court IT staff got ahead of this problem early to minimize disruptions to Judges, staff, the public and the legal community. IT services were interrupted throughout the court, but all has been restored as of 9:30 a.m."
