911 Systems Went Down Nationwide, Massive Microsoft Outage and Major Cyber Attack at the Same Time

By Nick Arama | 9:30 PM on September 28, 2020

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AP featured image — FILE- This March 15, 2018, file photo shows a 911 call center in Roswell, Ga., with one of the computer screens used by dispatchers shows a text message that has come into the system. The Roswell call center is one of the few in the United States that accepts text messages. Most places in the U.S. don’t have access to text-to-911 services, an increasingly crucial gap during an era of mass shootings and other catastrophes, when a phone call is not always an option. (AP Photo/Lisa Marie Pane, File)

Around 7 p.m. EST, local police departments across the country began reporting that their 911 systems were down.

Police across the country from Nevada to Pennsylvania reported the problem and urged people to call local numbers if they had an emergency.

911 OUTAGES: Police departments across the country, including here in the Philadelphia region are reporting 911 outages on Monday night. https://t.co/YPtWwOoWul

— Action News on 6abc (@6abc) September 29, 2020

Minneapolis direct dial for 911 is 612.348.2345. pic.twitter.com/Obgy1yz1Cj

— CrimeWatchMpls (@CrimeWatchMpls) September 28, 2020

911 services are down in the City of Tucson. If you need to make an emergency call, dial 520-372-8011. We will let you know when 911 is back online. pic.twitter.com/aDfAIX3yDU

— Tucson Police Dept (@Tucson_Police) September 28, 2020

Many of the systems have since come back online, but some locations are still asking people to use local numbers instead of 911, so as not to overload the system.

At the same time, there’s been a major Microsoft system outage, according to NBC.

On a status page for its cloud services, the software giant acknowledged a widespread systems issue and said “Any user may experience access problems for Microsoft 365 services.” (The city government of Microsoft’s own hometown of Redmond, Washington said municipal phones were down due to the company’s outage.)

The Microsoft outage prevented users from accessing some of the company’s most widely used services, including Office.com, Outlook.com, and Teams. Some of the problems have since resolved, although some on the west coast are still suffering issues.

On top of that, Universal Health Services, one of the nation’s largest health care providers, has been suffering a massive cyberattack since Sunday, knocking them offline and crippling operations in many of their hospitals with their computers down across their systems. They have 26 acute care hospitals, 328 behavioral health facilities, and 42 outpatient facilities across the U.S., Puerto Rico, and the U.K.

It’s unclear if the various things are related yet.

At this point, can we turn 2020 back in and get a new year?