Hamilton hospitals hit by global IT 'blue screen of death' outage

Hamilton Health Sciences (HHS) says some of its operations areimpacted by a tech outage disrupting industries across the world Friday.

Earlier today, global cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike advisedclients that the company's Falcon Sensor software is causing Microsoft Windows to crash and display a blue screen, known informally as the "blue screen of death."

The problem crashed Windows machines and servers, sending them in a loop of recovery so they couldn't restart.

HHS said, in a statement, that it is affected by the outage but all of its hospitals"are safe and remain open" including Hamilton General Hospital.

HHS said some non-urgent appointments and procedures may be delayed and it wouldbe contacting those people who are affected.

The hospital says its teams are working swiftly to resolve the issue.

St. Joseph's Healthcare is also experiencing issues, says spokesperson Elizabeth Harrington. Patients may experience delays and will be kept informed about their care plans. Its hospital remains open.

The outage has caused several airlines to haltflights, knocked some broadcasters off-air and impacted everything from banking to health care with system-wide problems.

The City of Burlington reported Friday morningits online customer request system is down. It advised residents to call the city if they have an urgent request.

McMaster University has not experienced any major outages,it says. Microsoft services and other technology systems and softwares remain operational.

Metrolinx says its GOtrains and buses are not impacted. Customers can still use their Presto cards at stations and on buses, but may "experience difficulties" accessing their accounts or reloading funds to their cards online. They can add money to their accounts at stations.

Metrolinxhas since said that the issue impacting the Presto website and mobile app has been resolved.

The John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport says it is not impacted.All flights to and from Hamilton's airport appear to be running on time, according to its website. Air Canada, WestJet, Sunwing and Flair remainoperational.

U.S. airlines impacted include United, American, Delta and Allegiant, which had all been grounded, along with Porter Airlines.

More to come.