COLUMBUS, Ind. — Bartholomew County and Columbus emergency services are working normally this morning except for access to other databases used in law enforcement, such as the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, officials said this morning.
A Microsoft global technology outage grounded flights, knocked banks offline and media outlets off air on Friday in a massive disruption that affected companies and services around the world and highlighted dependence on software from a handful of providers.
Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike said that the issue believed to be behind the outage was not a security incident or cyberattack.
The issue affected Microsoft 365 apps and services, and escalating disruptions continued hours after the technology company said it was gradually fixing it.
Bartholomew County E-911 Director Todd Noblitt said the county’s 911 system is intact and working, although access to the BMV, which police use to check driver’s license status and registrations, has been disrupted.
The state BMV reported on social media it is affected by the outage and the state agency was unable to process transactions on Friday morning.
Bartholomew County’s tech system does have CrowdStrike, but officials at the courthouse said there had been no impact on computer systems for county offices.
Jackson County 911 had a service disruption early this morning, but service has since been restored, according to officials there. Seymour police and Jackson County use each other’s systems as backup during outages, according to officials.
Columbus city officials said they are experiencing minor disruptions due
to the global technology outage.
• Columbus Fire Department (CFD) Inspection Division is facing technical
challenges with their inspection software, resulting in limited functionality. CFD
Public Information Officer Mike Wilson said, “This will not affect our service delivery to the
community.”
• Columbus Police Department Records Division is encountering software issues,
while all other services are running normally.
• Columbus City Utilities are experiencing difficulties with their online payment
system. They are currently accepting cash or check payments at their office
located at 1111 McClure Road. Customers must bring in a billing statement to use this option. The office is unable to access customer billing information or process credit cards due to the outage.
Columbus Regional Health reported everything normal and operational this morning.
The website DownDectector, which tracks user-reported internet outages, recorded growing outages in services at Visa, ADT security and Amazon, and airlines including American Airlines and Delta.
Microsoft 365 posted on X that the company was “working on rerouting the impacted traffic to alternate systems to alleviate impact in a more expedient fashion” and that they were “observing a positive trend in service availability.”
The company did not respond to a request for comment. It did not explain the cause of the outage further.
CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz posted on social media platform X that the company “is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts.”
He said: “This is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed.”
— The Associated Press contributed to this story.
This story will be updated.
