Global IT outage also impacting Centre County. Here’s what we know is affected so far

A widespread IT outage that impacted various hospitals, airports, banks and businesses around the world Friday morning has also affected Centre County.

According to reports, the global issue is believed to be due to a faulty update issued by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike to computers running Microsoft Windows. CrowdStrike said it was not a cyberattack, and officials are scrambling to fix the issue.

Here’s what we know has been impacted in Centre County:

Mount Nittany Health cancels nonemergency appointments: The health care provider announced shortly after 6 a.m. it canceled all nonemergency appointments — including surgeries — at both Mount Nittany Medical Center and its physician group locations for Friday.

However, shortly before 4:30 p.m., Mount Nittany said all of its systems were back online. It will be fully functional Monday, and it is “currently contacting patients to reschedule any canceled appointments.”

CATA running as usual but experienced some early issues: Even in Friday morning, the Centre Area Transportation Authority said “operations are running as usual.” But those trying to contact CATA’s administrative systems might have encountered some difficulties.

CATA reported then it expected to be fully operational by Friday afternoon, and that expectation proved true.

State College Regional Airport was “impacted”: Of all the flights departing from State College before 7 p.m. Friday — including passenger planes, airmail planes, etc. — two of 18 were canceled, according to FlightRadar24.com. Others experienced delays.

A local United Airlines manager said in an email “seven” of their computers — it wasn’t clear if he meant “several” — were still not working shortly before 4 p.m. But he said they’ve still managed to get flights out.

VCA Metzger Animal Hospital experiencing phone issues: In a Facebook post, the animal hospital acknowledged in the morning it was experiencing issues with phones and internet connectivity, which made “basic hospital functionality significantly more difficult.” It said it’s working to correct the issue but did not provide any updates on social media before 7 p.m.

This story was originally published July 19, 2024 at 8:39 AM.