The Canada Revenue Agency has begun paying Canada Child Benefit (CCB) payments, but the federal government is warning recipients that payments may be delayed due to a global IT outage that began on Friday.
Revenue Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau said on social media that the Canada Revenue Agency was “not affected by the global IT outage and has sent CCB payments to all eligible households.”
But Bibeau added that the federal government was aware of “potential challenges some banks may face in making payments” and would work with banks to “ensure a smooth transaction.”
The global blackout has disrupted operations across multiple industries, with airlines grounding flights, some broadcasters cut off and everything from banking to healthcare suffering system outages.
Canadians woke up on Friday to a global technology outage that disrupted operations across multiple industries. Cybersecurity company Crowdstrike’s Falcon Sensor software caused Microsoft Windows to crash with a blue error screen. Cybersecurity and technology analyst Ritesh Kotak explains how the outage affected Crowdstrike subscriptions and what mitigation measures Microsoft is taking.
CrowdStrike, a global cybersecurity company, announced that its Falcon Sensor software caused Microsoft Windows to crash, resulting in what is commonly known as the “Blue Screen of Death.”
In a social media post, CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz said the company is “actively working with customers affected by the flaw found in a single content update for Windows hosts.”
“Mac and Linux hosts are not affected,” Kurtz said. “This is not a security incident or cyber attack. The issue has been identified, isolated, and a fix is being deployed.”
Canada’s signals intelligence agency, the Communications Security Executive (CSE), said in a statement that the Canadian Cyber Security Centre had contacted CrowdStrike and offered to assist “should it be required.”
“At this time, this does not appear to be a cybersecurity incident. We want to assure Canadians that we are working with our Government of Canada partners to assess the impact this may have,” the CSE said.
Kurtz also said that while some systems will not automatically recover, the company will “ensure that all customers are fully restored.”
