Statewide 911 service outage cause determined

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (WGGB/WSHM) – State officials have been able to determine what happened Tuesday that caused 911 services to be disrupted statewide.

According to the Massachusetts State 911 Department the outage was caused by a firewall.

“A preliminary investigation conducted by the State 911 Department and (911 vendor) Comtech determined that the outage was the result of a firewall, a safety feature that provides protection against cyberattacks and hacking. The firewall prevented calls from getting to the 911 dispatch centers …” the Department said Wednesday morning.

The interruption to the system started at about 1:15 p.m. Tuesday and lasted for about 2 hours.

By 3:15 p.m. the 911 system was back up and running as normal.

[ Statewide 911 service restored across Massachusetts]

“Comtech’s initial review of the incident has confirmed that the interruption was not the result of a cyberattack or hack; However, the exact reason the firewall stopped calls from reaching dispatch centers remains under review,” noted the MA State 911 Dep.

State officials report that Comtech has applied a technical solution to “ensure that this does not happen again.”

“The Massachusetts State 911 Department is deeply committed to providing reliable, state-of-the-art 911 services to all Massachusetts residents and visitors in an emergency. The Department will take all necessary steps to prevent a future occurrence,” explained Frank Pozniak, the Department’s Executive Director.

We’re told while the 911 system was disrupted on Tuesday, there were no reports of any emergencies being impacted.

“The State 911 Department wishes to thank state and local emergency response agencies for their swift response to this matter.”

This marks the second time this year the 911 system has been disrupted in MA.

Back on April 12, several communities across the commonwealth, including Springfield, were impacted by an outage to the 911 system.

In that case, a network issue at one of the 911 Department’s data centers was determined to be the cause.

[READ MORE: Springfield’s 911 system back online following statewide issue]

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