Businesses, hospitals, banks affected by global Microsoft outage

WASHINGTON ( DC News Now ) — Transportation across the world was affected by a faulty software update on Friday — but flights and trains weren’t the only services affected.

Businesses, hospitals and banks also reported issues after an update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike affected many people who rely on Microsoft Windows.

Banks such as American Express and TD Bank reported issues — according to the Associated Press, American Express had some issues processing transactions and TD Bank’s customers made online complaints reporting that they were not able to access accounts.

The Associated Press said that the coffee chain, Starbucks, was also affected — customers had difficulty ordering ahead, causing long lines at some locations.

At a Starbucks in Arlington, a line of cars piled up at the drive-thru, all whom had to order at the electronic board and pay with cash or card at the window.

“We come here every day after work and we use the [app],” said one customer, noting that the line was slightly longer than usual.

The wait was not long, but the process by which consumers got their coffee was altered.

“For Starbucks, this is a small, small, small inconvenience,” Sarah Andrade said.

Andrade, a healthcare worker, described the challenges at her workplace.

“It’s a little bit of chaos happening there right now,” she said. “That’s a huge impact.”

INOVA posted a notice on its website stating all of its sites were open and serving patients.

“The global IT outage has affected some Inova technology systems. As patient safety is our top priority, we have taken measures to limit the impact to patient care while we work to fully restore standard operations,” INOVA stated on its website.

Similarly, the Associated Press reported that some medical facilities suspended visits and canceled surgeries after problems with appointment systems.

In the DMV, Johns Hopkins Medical Facilities said that the outage only had “minimal impact” on its normal functions. MedStar Health also reported that it was not affected.

“ Johns Hopkins Medicine (JHM) facilities are open and providing patient care. JHM is aware of the Microsoft and CrowdStrike technology outage and is currently experiencing minimal impact to our normal IT functions. JHM has emergency preparedness protocols, including downtime procedures, in place that ensure the health system is able to maintain continuity in our operations and ability to continue to provide safe, high quality care in the event of an outage, like this. “

Johns Hopkins Medical Facilities

Among other services that were impacted was D.C.’s newest sports betting app, BetMGM and numerous Department of Motor Vehicle facilities across the DMV.

The sports betting app, which just launched in Wahington, D.C., was one of several apps with outages during the day.

Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine spoke on the outage during a briefing with reporters on Friday.

“Technology is generally our friend,” he said. “But you’ve got to have redundancy. Because if the technology goes down chaos can be the result.”

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