Global IT Outage Forces Closure of County Offices

OTSEGO COUNTY—Edwin Frazier Jr., chair of the Otsego County Board of Representatives, announced this morning that all Otsego County buildings are closed today, July 19, due to widespread computer system disruptions impacting county operations and other systems around the world.

According to a post made by the Otsego County Office of Emergency Services earlier today, the following Otsego County departments reported to work as usual: 911 & EMS, Emergency Services, the Sheriff’s Office, Information Technology and Building Services.

Chairman Frazier is referring to a global IT outage that brought down systems across a wide range of businesses this morning.

According to Reuters, “A worldwide tech outage crippled industries from travel to finance on Friday before services started coming back online after hours of disruption, highlighting the risks of a global shift towards digital, interconnected technologies. A software update by global cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike (CRWD.O)…appeared to have triggered systems problems that grounded flights, forced some broadcasters off air and left customers without access to services such as healthcare or banking.”