SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (WGGB/WSHM) – Beyond flight delays and cancellations, the global tech outage impacted other things here in western Mass.
The outage affected several hospitals across the state. We know that Mass General Brigham across the state in Boston was forced to cancel all elective surgeries and more locally, Cooley Dickinson also saw the impacts. Even operations here at Western Mass News were affected this morning.
A new software update to a commonly used cyber security system took down computers across the globe Friday, impacting airlines, banks, and media outlets like us here at Western Mass News.
Mass General Brigham along with member hospitals like Cooley Dickinson in Northampton were forced to cancel all non-emergency surgeries Friday due to the severity of the issue, releasing this statement that reads in part:
“We have dedicated every available resource to resolve this issue as quickly as possible, and we apologize for the inconvenience this has caused our patients. It is our highest priority to ensure that our patients receive the safest care possible.”
Meanwhile, Baystate Health Center in Springfield lucked out and they did not experience any major issues from the outage.
Western Mass News spoke with local tech expert Stan Prager, the owner of Go Geeks in East Longmeadow. He told us who was most at risk during the software upgrade.
“If your computer is based on a Windows system, this update from Cloud Strike would impact it. If your system was not a Windows system, like a Mac based system or a Linux based system, it would not affect you.”
Prager said that locally, big businesses were hit the hardest, like banks and hospitals. He pointed out that smaller companies most likely don’t run this system.
“I mean, I wouldn’t be running Falcon Sensor Software, you would be running that if you were an airline or a bank or a pharmaceutical company because, you know, this is really high-end cyber security software and it’s designed for trying to prevent criminals from getting in there,” he claimed.
Another local system that was impacted was our power grid. ISO New England issued a statement that read:
“The region’s power system remained reliable throughout the event, though some systems internal to the ISO were affected and have since been restored.
The ISO is in close coordination with market participants who are experiencing issues on their systems and is available to assist should new issues arise.”
Prager told us the biggest takeaway is to not panic. He assured us this was not a cyber-attack, but preventative maintenance that unfortunately caused an outage similar to what would occur during a cyber-attack to the technological systems globally.
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