CrowdStrike outage impacts airports, banks and businesses in Nebraska

CrowdStrike’s routine software update has temporarily put airlines, banks and businesses off the grid on Friday. In Nebraska, people across the state were navigating the technological issue.

A failed update on the company’s Microsoft Windows software created the cyber outage. Its Mac and Linux operating systems are both operating. CrowdStrike President and CEO George Kurtz released a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter, about the outage, “This is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed.” A routine software update from cybersecurity company CrowdStrike has temporarily put airlines, banks and businesses off the grid. In Nebraska, airlines across the state were navigating technological issues Friday morning.

Airports

Not all airports were impacted by the outage, but some have faced flight delays, cancellations and other issues.

In Scottsbluff, the first scheduled arrival at Western Nebraska Regional Airport was delayed and more issues were expected throughout the day.

"My understanding is that United downloaded an update to all the system and it crashed the system," said Raul Aguallo, the airport's executive director.

Aguallo said United, Delta and American airlines were all impacted.

"We're going to have some people that are probably delayed and hopefully they get [the software crash] managed before the afternoon flight so they can get them all out on that one," he said.

Rachel Barth, who serves as the Director of Air Service and Marketing at the Lincoln Airport Authority, said the Lincoln Airport has not experienced any delays in departures or arrivals as of 10 a.m. Friday.

However, Barth said the CrowdStrike outage could still impact passengers later in the day, as airlines like United have issues booking passengers.

Airport officials advised passengers on X, formerly Twitter, to check the status of their flights for updates.

"We don't obviously know the long-term effect of what's going to happen the rest of today," Barth said. "We're just encouraging passengers, if they're in one of those situations where they have an upcoming flight, or maybe they're in Denver or O'Hare trying to fly back into Lincoln, that they're checking their United app because they are trying to send messages out to passengers."

Eppley Airfield released a statement on X Friday morning that airport operations were normal.

Banks

At Union Bank and Trust, Vice President of Marketing Carol Ash said the software outage has not affected primary banking systems.

First National Bank of Omaha, the largest bank in Nebraska, also did not experience any issues.

Pinnacle Bank's online banking phone lines were not available today due to the outage.

Businesses

Both small and large businesses were both impacted by the outage. Health Insurance Agency, Blue Cross Blue Shield, was one of many companies impacted. Amy Arnold, Vice President of Communications, said that the company found out about the outage last night.

“We had teams working overnight to figure out what the issue was and to get things turned around and back up and running,” Arnold said. “Our critical systems are starting to come back up, as of right now able to serve our members.”

911 Call Center

Lincoln’s Police Department’s IT department worked to get the department online again. Public Information Officer Erika Thomas said they worked quickly and diligently to get their vital resources running smoothly.

“Our dispatchers for a time did have to pivot to using pen and paper kind of going old school, but that information will be put into the computer system at a later date to make sure that that is still digitally documented,” Thomas said. “The impact on the public was zero.”