Jul 21, 2024 By Jon Andreassi 3 min read

The outage affecting Microsoft Windows disrupted industries and businesses across the globe Friday, and the fallout was felt locally with customers of at least one bank not receiving their paychecks.

The First Federal Savings and Loans Association of Greene County experienced critical issues with tools that handle deposits and payroll. Two customers of the bank reached out to the Observer-Reporter via social media to share that their paychecks were not deposited into their accounts.

Fayette County Commissioner Scott Dunn said some county employees reported not receiving their pay as well.

Chuck Trump, president and CEO of First Federal Savings, acknowledged Friday morning that the outage prevented customers from having money deposited into their accounts, but did not know how widespread the issue was.

“Whether it is every employer, or every paycheck deposit, we just don’t have that information yet,” Trump said.

Trump said the bank’s internal systems were back up and functioning around 4:15 p.m. Friday.

According to Trump, how each industry or individual business was affected varied depending on which tools and applications they use.

First Federal Savings plans on helping customers who overdraw their accounts due to not being paid on time, and then being assessed a fee for insufficient funds.

“We will stand behind making that customer whole,” Trump said.

Robert Flanyak Jr., CEO of CHROME Federal Credit Union, said his organization was not affected.

“The recent Microsoft/Crowdstrike situation has not affected any of our 14,000 members’ accounts,” Flanyak said in an emailed statement.

Efforts to reach other local financial institutions concerning the outage were unsuccessful.

While medical facilities were also impacted by the outage, local hospitals reported minimal to no issues at all.

“UPMC has been impacted by the worldwide CrowdStrike cybersecurity outage affecting fewer than 10% of our Microsoft Windows-based devices at some of our facilities,” said Stephanie Wagoner, a spokesperson for UPMC Washington and UPMC Greene. “UPMC’s IT team intervened early to mitigate the problem and is restoring servers and PCs. Patient care has not been affected and our facilities are operational. Our emergency departments are open and appointments and procedures will proceed as scheduled.”

Bill Toland, director of public relations for Allegheny Health Network, said the health care provider was mostly unaffected. AHN operates Canonsburg Hospital.

“We’ve had very minimal impact to our operations … No blue screens of death,” Toland said.

Penn Highlands Healthcare did not have any issues either, according to spokesperson Corinne Laboon.

At the county level, officials from Washington, Fayette and Greene counties said operations were not affected by the outage.