Half the City of Portland’s Systems Went Down During Global Microsoft CrowdStrike Software Outage

▤ Summary

The global Microsoft CrowdStrike software outage that impacted hospitals, banks and governments across the world did not spare the city of Portland. Wheeler emphasized that no Portlander who called 911 during the outage experienced issues connecting with the city’s first responder system: Shad Ahmed, director of the Portland Bureau of Emergency Management, says dispatchers switched to a manual logging system for calls until their internal software was fixed. as we’ve seen police and fire come back online, we’re starting to deal with the lower priority systems.” Ahmed said that internal systems that deal “with how we do finance to payroll, those are all online.” “As a city,” Ahmed said, “we’re in pretty good shape right now.” Another concern amid the ongoing outage: The global mayhem among many of the world’s biggest financial institutions is a feasting ground for criminal activity. Ahmed warned businesses that criminals may use the outage to pose as CrowdStrike employees to gain access into data centers and financial systems. “Our federal partners are reminding us that there is a potential for criminal actors to exploit this vulnerability by impersonating the CrowdStrike staff.

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