Northeast Ohio impact of global tech outage extends to utilities, hospitals, government

A Friday morning global tech outage impacted multiple institutions throughout Northeast Ohio, leading to flight delays, disrupting some Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicle Services and forcing at least one local City Hall to shut down for the day.

The outage impacted Enbridge Gas Ohio's call center, some flights at the Akron-Canton Airport , the city of Akron, Summa Health, Cleveland Clinic and the E-ZPass website.

Statewide agencies such as the Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services (ODJFS) and Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) also reported impacts.

U.S. cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike , which says it's used by over half of Fortune 500 companies, said a faulty system update caused the outage. Microsoft's Windows Operating System was also impacted .

What is CrowdStrike?: What to know about cybersecurity company tied to global tech outage

Businesses wait on 'slammed' outsourced IT services for help

The outage was specific to Microsoft Windows but not Mac or Linux, said Tyler Hudak, practice lead in incident response at TrustedSec , a Fairlawn-based cybersecurity consulting firm.

When asked who is impacted, Hudak replied, "It may be actually easier to list institutions that are not impacted by something like this."

For organizations that do not have a "good disaster recover plan, or has a small IT department, they could very well be down for days to weeks," Hudak said.

Outage impacts Ohio: CrowdStrike outage disrupts services at Ohio BMV, local hospitals and others

Some small- to medium-sized companies outsource their information technology (IT), he said.

Outsourced IT providers, he said, are "probably getting slammed with calls right now, and, so, there's going to be a delay if [businesses] have to wait for a third party to recover their systems from this.

"I honestly suspect that some companies may disable or uninstall CrowdStrike, which removes a bit of protection on systems," Hudak said. "And so I think over the next couple of weeks, we may start getting an increased volume of calls of people calling us and saying, 'Hey, our CrowdStrike systems — our protection — was disabled. We need somebody to come in and figure out if attackers did anything during that time,' because if their protections are disabled, that's a great opportunity for an attacker to move in and move undetected within their environment."

Enbridge Gas Ohio experiencing call center interruptions

Enbridge Gas Ohio, formerly Dominion Energy Ohio, experienced technical issues at its call center because of the outage, the utility shared in a statement.

Enbridge customers who experience gas emergencies should call 911 if their calls to the utility go unanswered.

According to the statement, customers who smell gas should immediately leave the area, warn other people to stay away and call 911 from a safe place.

People who suspect gas leaks should not try to adjust natural gas valves; not use a lighter, strike a match or smoke; not use any electric switches, phones (including cellphones), flashlights or garage door openers; and not start or stop vehicles, machinery or anything else that could spark.

Some flights delayed at Akron-Canton Airport

The outage delayed some arrivals and departures at Akron-Canton Airport in Green, but operations within the airport itself were normal, spokesman Christian McCauley said.

Although the airport's online flight information was showing no cancellations on Friday morning, and some delays, McCauley said that information may not be accurate because the information technology outage may have interrupted airline communications.

He advised travelers to contact airlines directly to verify anticipated arrival and departure times. Carriers serving Akron-Canton Airport are American Airlines, United Airlines, Breeze Airways and Allegiant Air.

Outage impacted city of Akron, but not 911 dispatch

The city of Akron shared a news release Friday morning stating that the outage "has impacted some city devices and servers although the core city services were not disrupted."

The city's 911 dispatch operations were still in operation and working as intended, the release said. Water and wastewater services did not experience any disruptions, either.

Users of city services could see slight delays with accessing the 311 website, Utilities Business Office, Income Tax and city golf courses, according to the release.

The city's IT workers are working on bringing departments and systems online, per the release, which also said all city buildings are remaining open to public access and all city employees are reporting to work.

“We appreciate the patience and understanding of our residents as our staff work as quickly as possible to respond to this widespread outage,” Akron Mayor Shammas Malik said in a prepared statement. “Our critical and core city functions and services are working as intended and we expect to have all other functionality back up and running very soon. I want to express my sincere appreciation to our IT staff for their diligence which quickly caught these issues last night and their swift work at addressing the problems to provide a fix.”

Those with questions can call 3-1-1 to speak to a customer service representative.

ODJFS experiences disruptions

According to an Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services spokesperson, the global Crowdstrike issue disrupted some ODJFS services and operations.

If residents are having issues accessing ODJFS services, the department is asking residents please try again later.

Some Stark County systems back online after outage

Some Stark County computer systems were back online by Friday afternoon following impact from the outage.

County Auditor Alan Harold, who oversees the county IT department, said IT employees had been working since midnight to address outages.

"All offices have been patient and cooperative, as has the public, through this trying situation," he said.

All departments were up and running and have "all or at least most levels of functionality," he said as of 1 p.m. Friday.

"Public safety, courts, real estate functions, building and health departments, Jobs & Family Services are all able to interact and serve the public, through walk-ups, calls, emails, and all other normal means," Harold said in an email.

Public safety services, including 911 and dispatch operations, also remain operational.

"All offices were affected," Harold said.

To address the outage, staff had to update all 300 county servers, as well as address issues on individual staff computers manually.

Harold said some state-based systems, such as car title transfers, were still experiencing outages as of Friday afternoon.

County offices remained open. Harold recommended that members of the public call in for assistance before coming in person.

County Administrator Brant Luther said the public should still be able to access services.

"Services are not disrupted to the point where people still can't get the help that they need," he said.

Cleveland Clinic, Summa, Akron Children's Hospital impacted, but patient care has not been affected

Some technology that Cleveland Clinic uses was affected, according to statement from the hospital system, which includes Akron General and Mercy Hospital.

However, patient care was not impacted, and the hospital system continued to provide care at all locations, the statement said.

Summa Health also was impacted by the outage, but patient care was not interrupted due to "robust policies and procedures in place for this type of situation," said Elbridge Locklear, senior vice president and chief information officer at Summa, in an emailed statement.

"Thank you to all of our staff and clinicians for continuing to provide high quality care to our community throughout this situation," Locklear said.

Akron Children's Hospital also experienced outages, said Harun Rashid, chief information officer.

“Fortunately, the impacts were minimal, and we have processes in place to ensure patient care was not impacted,” Rashid said.

City of Hudson services back up but City Hall closed

Hudson City Hall wa closed Friday due to the outage, according to the city's alert center .

The city of Hudson announced Friday morning that any staff who were able to work from home for the day were doing so.

The city's phone systems, aside from 911 dispatch, were down in the morning, and so was the city's utility billing system. As of 12:45 p.m. Friday, those services were back up.

Services disrupted at Ohio BMV, Public Utilities Commission of Ohio

The Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles reported on X that some BMV and Title services were not available due to the outage.

The PUCO reported on X that the CrowdStrike issue disrupted some commission services and operations, including the Docketing Information System and call center.

PUCO provided an update on X stating that its call center was back up "but may have longer hold times."

Ohio Department of Education and Workforce experienced communication issues

The Ohio Department of Education and Workforce could not be reached via phone Friday morning due to calls not going through and the website appeared to be down. The website was back up as of 2:30 p.m. Friday, and a reporter was able to reach the department by phone.

E-ZPass website experiencing issues

Users of the E-ZPass website experienced some issues from the outage Friday morning that the Ohio Turnpike and Infrastructure Commission planned to quickly resolve, the commission shared on Facebook.

Columbus Dispatch reporters Samantha Hendrickson and Cole Behrens contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Northeast Ohio impact of global tech outage extends to utilities, hospitals, government