The Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport in Little Rock, Arkansas. (Courtesy of Clinton National Airport)
A global technology outage caused by a faulty software update affected more than 20 flights at Arkansas’ largest airport and knocked down at least 100 state servers on Friday.
Shane Carter, spokesperson for the Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport in Little Rock, said 17 flights were delayed and four were canceled. The airport’s restaurants were also affected, though Carter said all were operational Friday afternoon.
“The residual impact could linger nationwide for days,” Carter said. “Passengers traveling over the weekend should continue checking their flight status for updates.”
CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm that provides software to thousands of companies worldwide, is behind the technology issue. According to a statement from the company, the outage for Microsoft Windows users was not a cyberattack, and its staff understands the “gravity of the situation and are deeply sorry for the inconvenience and disruption.”
CEO George Kurtz expressed similar sentiments on social media. He said CrowdStrike’s customers “remain fully protected.” Kurtz also noted the issue was identified and a fix has been deployed.
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At the Arkansas Department of Education, spokesperson Kimberly Mundell said the outage affected all of its servers and applications. The servers were back running by 9:15 a.m. Friday after implementing a solution provided by CrowdStrike, Mundell said.
Some Arkansas residents who bank with Arvest may have experienced problems using their online and mobile app services Friday morning, spokesperson Tara Muck said. Arvest banking systems were not directly impacted by the outage, but some services may be delayed or interrupted.
Muck said staff are working with vendors to restore the services “as quickly as possible.”
The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences also reported some computer issues related to the technology outage, specifically in nonclinical areas.
The issues have since been resolved and patient care was not affected “as we have backup systems to ensure things operate seamlessly,” spokesperson Leslie Taylor said.
Some systems with Arkansas’ Department of Public Safety were impacted early Friday, though all issues have since been resolved, spokesperson Cindy Murphy. Arkansas State Police’s emergency response operations were not affected, she said.
The state Department of Human Services, of which the Office of Information Technology falls under, worked through limited impacts caused by the outage, spokesperson Gavin Lesnick said. The department restored computer access for some employees whose workstations were locked, but operations continued Friday, he said.
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