With a global technology outage created by a faulty software update, most of Iowa City and the surrounding area reported minimal disruptions to service.
Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike issued an update to computers running Microsoft Windows early Friday morning. However, the update resulted in an international technology outage, according to the Associated Press. The outage has left airplanes grounded, surgeries delayed, and broadcast news off the air.
The Iowa City Public Library had to temporarily suspend some services because of the outage, according to a press release sent out by the City of Iowa City.
The statement outlines that all computer services at the library were unavailable, including public computer access, catalog services, and online servers.
Services at the library were restored and at full functionality by 10 a.m. Friday.
Around other areas of Iowa City, work hasn’t been greatly impacted.
University of Iowa Public Relations Manager Chris Brewer, in an email to The Daily Iowan, said the UI and UI Health Care “are not directly affected by the global IT outage.”
He said the university will continue to actively monitor the situation.
University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics Public Relations Manager Laura Shoemaker echoed Brewer’s statement in a later email.
“University of Iowa Health Care is minimally affected by the outage and continues to actively monitor the situation,” Shoemaker said.
A notable impact reported by national news outlets has been airplane groundings and airline cancelations.
The Eastern Iowa Airport Director of Marketing and Communications Pam Hinman said not much has changed there.
“I don’t have a ton to report other than American flights departed this morning, and United had a couple delays,” she said. “But other than that, I just heard from our United manager, and things are moving.”
Hinman later said there was one cancelation relating to the outage: Allegiant’s Punta Gorda flight.
Michael Tharp, the airport manager at the Iowa City Municipal Airport, said the airport has seen no impact.
“I don’t know of any impacts that we’ve had,” he said. “We don’t have airline service or anything like that that would have been grounded. So as far as I know, everything’s operating normally.”
The outage has been felt at the state level, according to a press release from Gov. Kim Reynolds’ office.
The release said the Iowa Department of Management’s Division of Information Technology’s security center was notified early Friday morning about the faulty update. The release said they implemented a temporary fix.
The initial impact of the outage was approximately 1,400 servers and 3,300 workstations.