Monroe County workers rush to restore devices after CrowdStrike outage

Monroe County workers worked this morning to restore approximately 3,500 devices affected by the worldwide CrowdStrike cybersecurity outage while also working to ensure there was no disruption to public safety services.

The county’s 911 emergency services have been disrupted but are working, Monroe County Executive Adam Bello said at a morning news conference. Anyone who calls should wait if they are put on hold and calls are answered, he said.

Bello said operations like the County Clerk’s Office or the Department of Motor Vehicles, which deal directly with customers, have seen the biggest impact. He said he hopes county operations will be up and running by Monday.

About 3,500 county devices were affected, Bello said. By 10 a.m., county IT workers had been able to get about 500 back online. The county used both automated and manual responses.

“We’re going to have to get our hands on our keyboards to figure this out,” said Daniel Krebs, a cybersecurity expert for the county.

Andy Moore, airport manager for Greater Rochester International Airport, said about 33 percent of flights were delayed or canceled as of 10 a.m. He added that customers should work with the airlines to resolve flight disruptions, as they would with other delays.

Bello said he received a call around 3:30 a.m. about the CrowdStrike disruption. CrowdStrike, a global cybersecurity operation, said the disruption was caused by new software it was downloading.

The county then pressed on to see what had been breached. Public safety operations were able to continue uninterrupted, thanks in part to backup systems.

CrowdStrike’s reputation is stellar, and its widespread use underlies its equally wide-ranging technology disruptions. “CrowdStrike is a top-tier product,” Krebs said.

Bello said there was no indication that any data in county records “was compromised.”