BOSTON – Investigators say they know what caused it Massachusetts’ 911 system will go down for two hours on Tuesday, but there are still questions about the exact cause of the outage.
The State 911 Department said the outage occurred from 1:15 p.m. to 3:15 p.m. due to a firewall, which is supposed to protect against cyber attacks and hacking. Comtech, the state’s 911 provider, said the outage was not caused by a hack or cyberattack, and reported that they have found a technical solution to ensure it doesn’t happen again.
“However, the exact reason why the firewall prevented calls from reaching dispatch centers remains under investigation,” the state said.
The 911 firewall system was “overprotective,” the governor says
Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey told reporters on Wednesday that the firewall system was “actually overprotective and ended up blocking the flow of calls.”
“The good news is that the problem has been identified and addressed,” she said. “For me, it’s about finding out what happened, getting the answers and making sure it never happens again.”
The outage had no impact on emergency conditions in Massachusetts, the state said
During the outage, people in Massachusetts received a telephone alert telling them to call police and firefighters directly if they needed help. However, the emergency centers could see who called them.
“While some calls may not have gone through, the system allows dispatchers to identify callers’ phone numbers and return those calls,” the 911 department said. “The ministry has not received any reports of emergencies that occurred during the outage.”
The state has urged people not to make “test calls” to 911 to make sure it works. A similar warning was issued when a cell service disruption affected the 911 system in multiple states in February.
