Updated, July 19, 12:30 p.m.: The 911 system for East Hampton Town and Village is operational despite the global outage of Microsoft-based technology and systems that impacted hospitals and emergency services in other regions Friday morning and also grounded planes and disrupted banking and broadcasting.
Concerns of a massive cyberattack were dispelled by The New York Times, which reported that “a software update issued by CrowdStrike," a cybersecurity firm, “appeared to be at the root of the problem, resulting in crashes of machines running the Microsoft Windows operating system.”
Detective Sgt. Ryan Hogan of the East Hampton Town police said as of 8:45 a.m., the Police Department “has had no issues that would be a concern for the public. It’s business as usual.”
East Hampton Village Mayor Jerry Larsen wanted residents to know, too, that "the East Hampton 911 system is functioning properly and there will be no delay in responding to an emergency."
East Hampton Village Police Sgt. Sean Christian said, however, that the village Police Department’s internal computers were down on Friday morning.
East Hampton Town Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez's office said midday on Friday that the town's "I.T. Department has thoroughly reviewed our systems, confirming that we have remained operational since the incident with CrowdStrike. Our Microsoft accounts are government accounts and reside on restricted servers, separate from the corporate systems that have been impacted. We have, however, encountered one minor issue. NOVAtime, our timeclock system for employee check-ins and check-outs, is currently experiencing minor interruptions. This issue is localized and does not affect our overall operations. Our I.T. team is actively addressing this minor concern, and we expect it to be resolved shortly. We want to ensure our residents that we are monitoring the situation closely."
As for Stony Brook Medicine, which oversees Stony Brook Southampton Hospital, a spokeswoman said early Friday afternoon that "Stony Brook Medicine is aware of the worldwide impacts related to Microsoft outages, which appear to be caused by the CrowdStrike application. Our leadership team is actively monitoring the situation and assessing how the disruptions are affecting its campuses, vendors, and our partners. At this time, operations are normal at our hospitals.”
This is a developing story that will be updated as more information becomes available.