Update: 5:30pm: Computer Services Department staff have been working systematically through all the ministries and departments affected by Friday’s IT outage, fixing about 250 PCs an hour, according to the latest update on the issue.
The government uses CrowdStrike antivirus software across its network, so when the cybersecurity company’s software-update defect crashed computers using Windows worldwide on Friday morning, it impacted most government entities on island.
According to an update issued at 5pm on Friday, the Computer Services Department had completed work in 30 departments, with 19 departments still in progress.
“To date, 85% of all PCs have been addressed, with roughly 250 machines being resolved per hour,” the statement noted.
It added, “Some of the departments currently in progress include, but are not limited to, the Department of Education Services, the Cayman Islands Coast Guard, the Ministry of Education, the Department of Planning, the Department of Vehicle Licensing, the Youth Services Unit, and the Department of Sports.”
It noted that it had completed work on computers in the Passport Office, WORC, the Office of the Director of Public Prosecution, the Needs Assessment Unit, the Department of Health Regulatory Services, the Financial Reporting Authority, and the E-Government Unit.
By the end of the day, three flights and returning to the US had been cancelled, and others had been delayed.
Update: 3pm: Services at many of the businesses and government departments in Cayman that had been affected by the global Microsoft outage were returning to normal by mid-afternoon Friday.
According to an update from government at lunchtime, its Computer Services Department had made “significant progress” in resolving the issues, saying that all production systems are operational and work had been completed in all the ministries, and work progressing at 10 departments.
“As of 12:30pm, 60% of all PCs have been addressed, and 100% of servers have been completed”, according to update.
The government stated that work on 911, the Passport Office, the House of Parliament, and Customs and Border Control had been completed, while efforts to fix computers at WORC and the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions were still continuing.
Albert Anderson, CEO of the Cayman Islands Airports Authority told the Compass on Friday afternoon that the CIAA had “no issues with its systems at either airport related to the worldwide IT issue”.
He said flight information for all airlines was updating regularly on the flight information display systems at Owen Roberts International Airport, but “we are experiencing intermittent issues with the on-line airline schedule service on caymanairports.com and this is being investigated”.
A number of bank ATMs that had been out of service are now working.
The outage had also affected the criminal and civil registries, and the Family Proceeding Unit, at the courthouse, preventing them from printing documents. That issue was resolved by mid-afternoon, according to a courts spokesperson.
Original story: Many of the Cayman Islands government and business systems were affected by a worldwide IT outage on Friday.
In a brief statement on Friday morning, the Cayman Islands Government confirmed that many of its “public facing services” had been impacted by issues with its CrowdStrike anti-virus software.
It said its Computer Services Department was working with CrowdStrike “on a necessary fix and is urgently striving to resolve this issue as quickly as possible”.
Banking services in Cayman were also affected and travellers faced flight delays and disruption throughout the day.
The outage, apparently caused by a faulty update on Windows by US cybersecurity company CrowdStrike, led to major disruptions of businesses, airports and banks worldwide.
On Friday morning, George Kurtz, CEO and founder of CrowdStrike, in a post on X, formerly Twitter, said a defect had been found in a “single content update for Windows hosts”.
Kurtz added, “This is not a security incident or cyberattack.”
CrowdStrike said the issue had been identified and a “fix has been deployed”.
Users trying to access their Windows systems on Friday were met with the so-called ‘blue screen of death’.
Flight disruptions
The outage prompted the delay or cancellation of flights worldwide. United, Delta and American Airlines issued a “global ground stop” on all of their flights on Friday morning, though later resumed operations.
According to flightaware.com, 2,180 flights within, into or out of the United States were cancelled, and more than 6,000 others were delayed.
Early on Friday morning, the Cayman Islands Airports Authority website indicated that four flights due to arrive from the US that day were delayed. However, later in the morning, the online schedule for flights on the site was no longer visible.
Nenah Konec, a Cayman Islands resident who was supposed to fly from Grand Cayman to Charlotte on Friday, said she received an email early in the morning from American Airlines saying her onward flight from Charlotte to Vancouver had been cancelled, “with no real explanation”.
While the Charlotte-Vancouver leg has been cancelled, the Cayman-Charlotte leg has been delayed, she said.
“We’ve had to reschedule so many things,” she said. “Firstly we have rescheduled our flights for tomorrow, flying from here to Dallas, staying overnight in Dallas, and then flying Sunday morning to Vancouver. We’ve had to reschedule hotels, car hire, dog boarding, etc.”
Cayman Airways, in a statement, said it was monitoring the situation, but that its flight operations for Friday were not affected. However, it advised passengers flying on Friday to expect some delays and “plan accordingly”.
Like many other companies, Cayman Airways said it was having issues processing credit card payments and, in the meantime, its ticket sales would temporarily be limited to cash transactions at ticket offices in the Cayman Islands only.
ATM and banking services impacted
Cash machines were impacted, with RBC advising customers that its ATMs were temporarily unavailable.
Scotiabank also warned customers that it would have limited services available and delays should be expected in its branches.
By early afternoon, however, service had resumed at several of the ATMs.
Workforce Opportunities and Residency Cayman (WORC) advised customers that its systems were down at Artemis House, so its services were reduced on Friday.
It said payments would be accepted by customers paying by cheque and using the corporate bag drop, and endorsements would be issued to customers who could show their existing valid licence.
It also noted that calls received by its call centre were also affected and were unavailable.
At Hurley’s supermarket, a spokesperson said its credit card readers at the check-out counters were not working, but it was using mobile machines to process payments.
Check back for more on this developing story.
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