Governor Hochul: “The outage is having impacts here in New York for private sector businesses that rely on CrowdStrike, and for systems even within the New York State Government. I want to be very clear, at this time, we have no indication that this is a hack or a cyber security threat. It is more of a technical issue.”
Hochul: “Our top priority is emergency services. We're working with localities to ensure that 911 systems are operational. Multiple counties have notified our Office of Emergency Management that their internal computer systems have been impacted, and thankfully, all of them have backup systems for situations like this. New Yorkers in all 62 counties are able to call 911 at this time.”
Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul updated New Yorkers on the global computer system outages that are impacting New York State.
VIDEO of the event is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.
AUDIO of the Governor's remarks is available.
A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:
Before we get started with today's event, I want to acknowledge that we are in an unprecedented situation. At approximately 12:45 a.m. this morning, the cyber security company, CrowdStrike, sent a software update to their clients. Many systems received this update that literally shut down following this downloading due to a problem with the software.
The outage is having impacts here in New York for private sector businesses that rely on CrowdStrike, and for systems even within the New York State Government. I want to be very clear, at this time, we have no indication that this is a hack or a cyber security threat. It is more of a technical issue.
There is no risk to personal, sensitive information that we are aware of; although, we are continuing to monitor the environment very closely. Nonetheless, this has caused huge disruptions across the State of New York, around the country, and indeed the globe.
CrowdStrike has publicly said that they're aware of the issue, and they're working to resolve it. And they have shared a fix to the problem, and our teams are working as quickly as possible to implement the fix. They have also rolled back the update that caused the problem, but they do not have a timeline as to when this will be fully resolved. As soon as this problem was identified, in the middle of the night, I deployed my team of experts to address it.
Chief Cyber Officer, Colin Ahern, one of the best in the nation, I just got off the phone with him again, we'll continue to be speaking with him throughout the day. Our Commissioner of Homeland Security, Commissioner Jackie Bray, and the entire team at the Office of Technology Services who have been working through the night.
I want to give New Yorkers a brief update on our emergency response and our efforts to fix this problem. Our top priority is emergency services. We're working with localities to ensure that 911 systems are operational. Multiple counties have notified our Office of Emergency Management that their internal computer systems have been impacted, and thankfully, all of them have backup systems for situations like this.
New Yorkers in all 62 counties are able to call 911 at this time. Non-emergency services are being impacted as well. Major disruptions have been reported at DMVs across the State of New York. And while the Port Authority isn't impacted itself, the individual airlines are. So, everyone should certainly be checking flight information before they head to the airport.
The MTA – fully operational, but certain tech features like countdown clocks and the MTA app are unavailable at this moment. This is an obviously incredibly disruptive event caused by a third party vendor. We'll continue working around the clock to restore services as soon as possible, and we'll continue to keep New Yorkers updated on our progress.