City of Yellowknife, Northern stores hit by CrowdStrike outage

The City of Yellowknife says some of its services are being affected by a global IT outage caused by an error in a software update from cyber security firm CrowdStrike.

Thousands of flights have been disrupted worldwide, while hospitals, retail chains and businesses across the planet are also affected. Some broadcasters lost the ability to remain on the air.

CrowdStrike says the issue is not a hack or a malicious actor, but an update it was providing to Microsoft Windows-based machines that went wrong.

Those machines are now trapped in the so-called “blue screen of death” until they can be manually fixed. CrowdStrike says a solution to the problem exists, but resetting devices on such a large scale worldwide means disruption could last for days.

So far, the GNWT hasn’t indicated any issue with its services and there were no immediate reports of significant delays at Yellowknife Airport.

However, in a brief Facebook message at 9am, the City of Yellowknife said it was “being impacted” by the issue.

“Our staff have been working since last night to get key functions up and running, but some services may still be impacted,” the city stated, without providing any information about the affected services.

“Public safety services are functioning as normal. All city facilities remain open and operational. We thank you for your patience as we navigate this situation,” the statement concluded.

There were also reports of issues at some stores in the NWT, though it wasn’t immediately clear if all of those concerns were directly related to the broader CrowdStrike failure.

In Fort Liard, for example, the hamlet’s Northern store reported “a company-wide computer issue that is affecting our local store,” preventing it from opening at 10am on Friday as planned.

The North West Company, which operates Northern and NorthMart stores in the North, told Cabin Radio by email: “The CrowdStrike global technology outage has had an impact on some of our stores, resulting in a temporary disruption in their ability to process sales.

“We have been advised the issue has been identified and isolated, and a fix is being deployed. We are working hard to restore service as quickly as possible for all of our valued customers.”