Microsoft outage causes chaos for Chicago companies, government agencies
CHICAGO (CBS) – Much of the world woke up Friday to news of the major software issue that sidelines flights, disrupted healthcare systems and delayed banking.
The outage was linked to a cybersecurity firm called Crowdstrike that services Microsoft. While much of the problem seemed to be resolved by the late afternoon, several Chicago companies experienced a lot of grief because of the outages.
Those problems included flight cancellations and delays at both major Chicago airports as well as processing permits in places like Naperville. It also led to a very early morning wake-up and a long day for information technology experts and some Chicago-based corporations.
The headsets were a-buzz on Friday and all seemed calm at Traffic Tech on Friday afternoon after a chaotic morning thanks to the Crowdstrike crash.
"Because this was a massive outage, this would be like a Level 1, the highest you can go," said Brandon Morgan, part of the Traffic IT team.
The software outage could have been extra serious for a Chicago logistics company whose clients rely on the traffic tech system to move things from A to B, across the world.
"The biggest fear was that shipments and goods were going to be held up at shippers where drivers, for example, are not going to be able to get their bill of ladings or a pick-up number," said Blake Rowley, Traffic Tech's vice president of pricing.
Quick work by Traffic Tech's IT experts minimized disruptions. The team got some love on social media for their efforts, which involved manually fixing more than 100 computers in about six hours.
Morgan said he was "a little sleepy" on Friday and was probably in need of a nap later.
The people a the Illinois Secretary of State Office were also likely feeling exhausted. CrowdStrike problems hit all 138 locations. Passports couldn't be verified, so Real IDs couldn't be processed. Several road tests had to be rescheduled.
CTA, Metra, and Pace riders looking for help from the Regional Transportation Authority apparently dealt with long wait times on the phone.
Bank customers were also inconvenienced. CBS News Chicago crews noticed some Chase ATMs were out of service Friday afternoon.
The dreaded blue error screen also appeared on hundreds of computers within the University of Chicago Medicine system overnight. A hospital spokesperson said most issues were fixed by mid-morning.
Both FedEx and UPS said package delays might occur because of the Crowdstrike issues.
On top of that, Starbucks confirmed its mobile ordering system was affected.