Telecoms and broadcasters hit by CrowdStrike IT outage

Canadian broadcasters and telecoms reported experiencing mixed effects from a global outage on Microsoft Corp.’s Windows platforms Friday morning. Third-party cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike said it issued a faulty software update, causing blue screens worldwide for Windows clients. It was not the result of a cyberattack, company CEO George Kurtz said in a post on X. “Like many other broadcasters, airlines, and companies around the world, CBC/Radio-Canada was affected by the issue with the most recent version of the CrowdStrike Falcon software,” spokesperson Leon Mar told the Wire Report in an email. “Some radio and television programs did not air as scheduled and were replaced with other programming.” Telus Corp. also noticed problems. “As a result of a global software update outage from a third party, some Telus team members are unable to access the tools and systems necessary to support our customers,” spokesperson Brandi Merker emailed. “We are working with the utmost urgency to bring our systems to full functionality as soon as possible.” Some outlets which have broadcasting and telecom divisions were affected. Rogers Communications Inc. said there was no impact on its telecom division, aside from workers having difficulty logging in to their computers. “On the media side – there’s been minimal impact (e.g. few of our radio stations are airing repeat programming. Some employees, including in radio, may be unable to login to their computers),” communications manager Laura Crochetiere reported. Quebecor Inc. faced some challenges. “Thus far, this outage, the cause of which is external to our company, had very limited impacts on the customer base of Quebecor and its subsidiaries. For example, as of now, in Quebec, the airing of Le Québec Matin had to be delayed by 30 minutes this morning and by 6:30 all programming was back to normal,” the company stated. Customer service support for the company’s Freedom Mobile subsidiary was briefly out, the firm added. BCE Inc., which has both telecom and broadcasting properties, said it was unaffected by the cyber outage. “The Bell network is not experiencing any issues related to the IT outages reported today,” spokesperson Tianna Goguen noted. “Some of our customers and partners are impacted by the global outage and we are working with them to help recover their services.” Saskatchewan Telecommunications Holding Corp. managed to get by. “SaskTel was affected by the CrowdStrike outage; however, all impacted services have now been restored, with only minor intermittent interruptions,” the public telecom said. – Reporting by Paul Park at ppark@thewirereport.ca Editor’s note: This story was updated to provide details from Rogers, Quebecor and SaskTel.

Telecoms and broadcasters hit by CrowdStrike IT outage

Broadcast | | July 19, 2024

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