SAN DIEGO — Friday’s CrowdStrike worldwide outage impacted services all over San Diego.
Lines wrapped around the San Diego International Airport, as airlines were forced to delay and or cancel dozens of flights.
"We got through security and we were heading to the gate and a sign popped up and said cancelled so that was a little frustrating,” said one traveler.
“Our first flight was cancelled and we're waiting so hopefully we can reschedule. We can't get online to try to reschedule, so we're waiting to talk to somebody. We've been waiting in line for an hour," said another traveler.
In Chula Vista, people were turned away at the Social Security office. Signs on the door read “all offices are closed today.”
The Sheriff's Department says the outage forced them to limit jail bookings for a few hours. Scripps Health tells CBS 8 their computer systems were impacted. Customers at area banks reported they had trouble accessing services. Even Port of Entry crossings, court hearings and MTS routes were delayed as a result.
"This is probably one of the largest IT outages I've ever seen,” said Nikolas Behar, Professor of Cybersecurity at the University of San Diego.
Behar explained the outage, saying he believes it's likely the result of CrowdStrike failing to test its update before pushing it out.
"That is to say, whenever a company releases a new feature or an update, they have to test it before they actually release it, or it could be a result of lack of code scanning," said Behar.
CrowdStrike is one of the world's top cybersecurity companies providing protection to mostly businesses and government entities.
Behar says it appears the majority of its customers have automatic updates turned on, which is why a glitch in its latest update created an outage so widespread.
While CrowdStrike has resolved the problem on their end, Behar says it’s up to customers to follow a series of steps in order to get their business back up and running again, which will take time and patience.
“When they pushed out the update, it affected Windows systems, and it resulted in something called the blue screen of death, which is a Windows error that's been around for a really long time. And the only fix right now is a very, very manual and tedious process, so the technicians actually have to go around to each computer and get their hands on the keyboard, booted into a special mode, and then they either have to wait for the update to apply itself, or they have to modify or remove certain files within that special mode. And this is extremely difficult to do if you have a remote workforce."
Most local government offices tell CBS 8 they have resolved the issue on their end.
But, if you're flying, check with your airline. Due to a backlog, you may still experience some delays.