UK GPs and Pharmacies Predict Global IT Outage Disruption will Extend into the Weekend
An erroneous update released by cybersecurity company CrowdStrike caused widespread disruptions globally on Friday.
General practitioners (GPs) and pharmacies anticipate ongoing disruptions from the global IT outage throughout the weekend, leading to potential travel delays due to flight cancellations.
This flawed update affected Microsoft Windows PCs and resulted in flight and train cancellations, as well as impacting some healthcare systems. CrowdStrike’s CEO mentioned that it would take some time for systems to be fully restored after deploying a fix for the bug in the update.
The outage significantly affected a majority of GP practices in England, with NHS services experiencing increased pressure. GP surgeries reported issues booking appointments or accessing patient records due to the EMIS Web system outage.
In a technical statement, CrowdStrike explained that a “sensor configuration” triggered a logic error, which has since been corrected. However, the company clarified that it was not a security or cyber incident.
Airports in the UK advised passengers to check for delays or cancellations before traveling over the weekend, including popular locations like London Gatwick, Heathrow Airport, Manchester Airport, and Belfast International Airport.
Notably, on Friday, 207 flights were canceled in the UK, constituting 6.7% of all scheduled departures, with further cancellations and delays observed globally.
Former NCSC CEO Professor Ciaran Martin acknowledged that the worst of the outage was likely over but emphasized the need for preparedness for future vulnerabilities. The NCSC recommended affected organizations to implement vendor mitigations to address the issue and cautioned about an increase in related phishing attempts from malicious actors.
Security professional James Bore warned of lingering effects from the outage, especially for companies with limited IT resources that may take weeks to fully rectify the situation.
