KSHB 41 reporter Elyse Schoenig covers issues surrounding health care costs. This story came from a tip she received from a viewer. If you have a story idea, share it with Elyse by sending her an e-mail.
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Friday's global IT outage shows how much our systems are connected.
Cybersecurity company CrowdStrike said the problem impacts Microsoft cloud services. Their corporate customers range from media companies to airlines.
"When something like this happens, we should stop and say, 'OK, how would I operate if suddenly I lost access to banking? My e-mail communication, internet. How would I navigate?"' said Larry Wigger, a supply chain management professor at UMKC.
In Kansas City, the outage impacted some airlines flying out of Kansas City International Airport. Wigger said it affects more than just the actual travel.
"You know, there's air freight in that plane underneath you when you're a passenger,” he said.
Airlines worked all day Friday to resume normal operations.
The outage also made for a harried Friday at banks worldwide.
"A lot of people live paycheck to paycheck and so if they can't access their bank, they can't just weather it for weeks or days at a time,” Wigger said.
It impacted some hospital systems, including St. Luke's Health System.
It also caused the Jackson County Assessor's Office to postpone appointments.
The DMV in Grandview had to close Friday, while the DMV in Mission had to turn away more than one hundred people.
CrowdStrike said Friday it issued a new software update which automatically fixed some computers.
But some computers still require manual restarts.
"If those fixes aren't working and people aren't getting back to normal in these organizations going, you know, as next business week starts, then I start to pay more attention to it,” Wigger said.
