Boston, MA Microsoft/CrowdStrike Computer Outage Updates – NBC Boston

The Crowdstrike outage that affected Microsoft computers worldwide caused disruptions at hospitals, airports and other locations across the Boston area on Friday.

Several Boston hospital systems postponed elective surgeries and medical visits in the wake of the global outage. The Registry of Motor Vehicles canceled vehicle inspections throughout Massachusetts and temporarily canceled appointments. Courthouse operations and MBTA bus and train arrival times were also affected.

“The Healey-Driscoll Administration is closely monitoring the CrowdStrike technology outage and is working to mitigate any impacts to Massachusetts,” a spokesman for Gov. Maury Healey said Friday morning, as what one expert called “the largest IT outage in history” came to light.

The governor’s office said the Department of Transportation is the only executive branch agency that uses CrowdStrike’s services extensively, though some independent agencies, municipalities and the District Court also rely on CrowdStrike to some extent.

The technical failure did not affect Massachusetts’ 911 emergency reporting system, although public safety officials were closely monitoring the function, Healey’s office said. In New Hampshire, however, 911 services were disrupted.

In Massachusetts, the RMV had canceled all visits to customer service centers scheduled for Friday morning “because many of the work stations at the centers were not operational” and the statewide vehicle inspection system was unavailable, the Registry said. Road test visits continued to go on as scheduled Friday.

As some Massachusetts hospitals were affected by the outage and many decided to cancel elective procedures Friday, the Department of Public Health is working with hospitals to implement outage procedures so hospitals can continue to provide care, the governor’s office said.

DPH has activated the Department’s Operations Center in Marlborough to answer calls from health care providers across the state.

The Massachusetts Port Authority said Friday morning that its systems were not affected by the CrowdStrike issue. However, some airlines that fly to and from Logan International Airport have had computer problems that have led to delays, and Massport urged travelers to check with their airlines to see if their travel could be disrupted.

A spokeswoman said the Massachusetts judiciary was experiencing “technical difficulties in some areas of operation” Friday morning.

Power outages have hit major companies including Visa, Amazon, Delta and United.

“Approximately half of staff positions were impacted and are in the process of being restored,” court spokeswoman Jennifer Donahue said in a statement. “In addition, the Superior Court’s transcript recording system, For The Record (FTR), is not operational in multiple court buildings, causing delays to some court hearings. The Superior Court’s case management system and public portals, MassCourts.org, are fully functional.”

The outage did not affect the work of the Massachusetts Legislature, which held a two-and-a-half-hour formal legislative session on Friday aimed at delivering the governor’s overdue budget for fiscal year 2025.

“We are not aware of any disruptions to IT infrastructure and continue to closely monitor the situation as it develops,” House and Senate spokesmen said in a joint statement to State House News Service.

There was no impact to MBTA service, but real-time tracking data for buses and commuter rail services was unavailable to passengers for part of Friday morning. It was eventually restored.

Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike said the issue was related to a flaw found in one of its content updates for Windows hosts. The issue that is believed to be causing the outage is not a security incident or cyberattack, the company said.

“The issue has been identified, isolated, and a fix has been deployed. We are referring customers to the support portal for the latest updates, and we will continue to provide complete and continuous updates on our website,” the company said.

Here’s more information on what was affected in the Greater Boston area:

Flight Problems at Boston’s Logan Airport

The technical outage affected IT across multiple industries, wreaking havoc on airlines that issued ground stops while the problem was resolved. Meanwhile, at the MBTA, service continued, but electronic signage used to track trains and buses stopped working. Follow NBC10 Boston: https://instagram.com/nbc10boston https://tiktok.com/@nbc10boston https://facebook.com/NBC10Boston https://twitter.com/NBC10Boston

Long lines formed at Boston Logan International Airport as dozens of flights were delayed or canceled. Airport officials said a computer problem was to blame.

The Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement Friday that it is “closely monitoring a technical issue affecting U.S. airline IT systems. Several airlines have requested assistance from the FAA regarding ground stops for their fleets until the issue is resolved.”

The communications issues came less than an hour after Microsoft resolved service management and connectivity issues that affected several low-cost carriers.

It is unclear whether the decision to delay new flights is related to this issue. However, Frontier Airlines, Sun Country Airlines and Allegiant have been affected.

According to Reuters, Frontier leaders said late on Thursday that work was underway to resume normal operations and the blockade had been lifted.

This comes after Frontier canceled 147 flights and delayed 212 others on Thursday, according to FlightAware.

The affected airlines said in a statement that they were working to resolve the issue.

Problems at RMV, MBTA

Governor Maura Healey’s office says that while MBTA service is not impacted, real-time train location information and Commuter Rail arrival predictions were unavailable. The technical issue also affects boarding information at Boston stations.

T officials said they were “working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible.”

The disruption also affected the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles, which canceled appointments until the afternoon.

According to Healey’s office, credit card payments were not possible online and car inspections were not taking place.

Hospitals across Massachusetts have suffered a major IT outage.

More than 40 hospitals and health care facilities in Massachusetts use Epic, a popular cloud-based electronic health records system that has been hurt by the digital revolution.

“It’s a big, big, big deal that this is over,” said phlebotomist Kerry Grant, who works at Massachusetts General Hospital-Waltham.

General Brigham and Dana Farber were among Massachusetts health care giants who postponed non-emergency procedures on Friday.

A Mass General spokesperson said all elective and non-urgent surgeries, procedures and non-urgent outpatient services at Mass General Brigham facilities will be canceled Friday.

An urgent internal memo at Mass General said a system-wide incident command had been activated. All management and technical teams were working to resolve the issue, using so-called “downtime procedures” developed during training.

A Tufts Medical Center spokesperson said they have been “in close contact with the vendor. We are currently assessing the impact of the disruption to our clinical and surgical operations.”

A source at Newton-Wellesley Hospital said the situation felt like a return to the dark ages: the use of paper charts, lab orders, lots of phone calls and delays between departments.

A former Mass General hospital employee told NBC10 Boston that the company uses Microsoft Teams for key hospital operations and ongoing communications like scheduling, meetings and internal messages.

Boston EMS said it was experiencing some system issues but that 911 calls were not disrupted. It added that its services were and continue to be available.

The Department of Public Health is working with hospitals to limit the number of procedures and ensure continuity of care, Healey’s office said. It added that the department’s Operations Center in Marlborough is taking calls from health care workers.

“The administration is aware of national reports that some banks have been impacted and is monitoring the situation in Massachusetts,” the spokesperson said. “We are aware that some airlines have been impacted, which is impacting flights. We are in contact with Massport, which is urging passengers to check the status of their flights with their airline.”

Mass., NH 911 systems

The Massachusetts 911 system reported no issues during the outage Friday morning.

However, in New Hampshire, the 911 system’s servers briefly experienced an outage, likely due to a software vendor fault, the Department of Emergency Services and Communications said.

Residents were reminded to only call or text 911 in the event of an emergency.

Outage disrupts businesses in Mass., NH

While many businesses across the region have felt the effects, there was some silver lining for customers at Beverly’s Starbucks — the store was handing out free drinks at its drive-thru on Friday morning to make up for the inconvenience.

The Home Depot store on Route 28 in Salem, New Hampshire, was experiencing system problems.

In Boston, city officials said service could be disrupted by a global technology outage. They asked residents to call ahead before trying to access services at a city building.