Highlights from the global tech outage: Airlines, businesses and border crossings hit by global tech disruption

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A global technology outage caused by a faulty software update grounded flights, knocked media outlets offline, and disrupted hospitals, small businesses and government offices on Friday, highlighting the fragility of a digitized world dependent on just a handful of providers.

At the heart of the massive disruption is CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm that provides software to thousands of companies worldwide.

What to know:

 

3:15 PM MDT
If you want a Starbucks coffee, you can’t order ahead

People pining for a venti caramel macchiato or a grande frozen mango dragonfruit lemonade found Friday that they couldn’t order ahead from Starbucks online or with their cellphones Friday.

The coffee shop chain apologized for the problem and said it was serving customers in “a vast majority” of its stores and drive-thrus.

3:00 PM MDT
Outages affect hospitals, doctor’s offices in US, Canada, England

Health care providers across the U.S. and in Canada and England had their services disrupted by the global internet outage, though some systems saw little or no effect.

Harris Health System, which runs public hospitals and clinics in the Houston area, said it had to suspend hospital visits “until further notice” due to the outage. Elective hospital procedures were being canceled and rescheduled.

The outage affected records systems for Providence, a health system with 51 hospitals in Alaska, California, Montana, Oregon and Washington state.

The New York-based Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center said it was pausing the start of any procedures that require anesthesia.

In New England, the outage led some hospitals to cancel appointments.

A spokesperson at Mass General Brigham, the largest health care system in Massachusetts, said the outage had resulted in all scheduled nonurgent surgeries, procedures and medical visits being canceled for Friday. Emergency departments remained open.

The 188-hospital HCA Healthcare system said it didn’t expect its ability to provide care to be affected, and in Los Angeles, the Cedars-Sinai Health System remained open and continued to provide care. The Cleveland Clinic also said patient care was not affected.

In Canada, University Health Network, one of that nation’s largest hospital networks, said clinical activity was continuing as scheduled, but some patients may experience delays.

Across the Atlantic, Britain’s National Health Service said there were problems at most doctors’ offices across England as the outage hit the appointment and patient record system used across the health service. The state-funded NHS treats the vast majority of people in the U.K.

The NHS said the 999 number used to call for emergency ambulances wasn’t affected.

Post courtesy of apnews.com.

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