The Department of Homeland Security said it is working with CrowdStrike and Microsoft to “fully assess and address” system outages that crippled air traffic, impacted businesses and disrupted 911 emergency services.
The department said Friday its Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency is working with state and federal partners to assess the situation.
The global outage impacted some operations overseas and created long lines at U.S. airports, a nightmare for travelers.
President Biden, who faces pressure to drop his candidacy, was briefed on the situation while he was quarantined in Delaware due to a COVID-19 diagnosis.
“His team is engaged across the interagency to get sector-by-sector updates throughout the day and is standing by to provide assistance as needed,” a White House official said.
The Justice Department also has been affected by the outages.
The administration was also in touch with CrowdStrike, which said it identified the problem — a defect in an update — and is working on a fix.
“This is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed,” CEO George Kurtz said.
Likewise, Microsoft said the underlying problem was fixed but issues continued to spiral out.
“The underlying cause has been fixed, however, residual impact is continuing to affect some Microsoft 365 apps and services,” Microsoft said Friday on X.
The crisis underscored how reliant key sectors are on technology systems.
State and local leaders weighed in, too.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, said he activated an emergency response operations center at 3 a.m. and “provided guidance to relevant executive branch agencies on how to address the situation.”
“We are also engaging county and local governments, 911 call centers, and utilities to assess the impact and offer our assistance,” he said.
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, said critical health systems and 911 operations are working. “However, airlines continue to experience significant disruptions,” he said.
Government systems also saw problems, and the state is working to get them running smoothly, he said.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams scheduled a press conference on the upheaval.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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