911 Outage Shows System’s Perils

The abrupt failure of Massachusetts’ 911 system on June 18 was a stark example of the disastrous consequences that can occur when an emergency network that is supposed to be reliable is, without warning, suddenly unreliable. The outage, lasting two hours, prompted a scramble among emergency agencies as they directed the public to reach out directly to the local authorities at less-familiar phone numbers or, as a last resort, go in person to their local firehouse. The Massachusetts State 911 Department said that while operators did not receive calls during the outage, they were able to see the numbers of people who had tried to reach 911 and were able to call them back. The failure was caused by a firewall that was supposed to help prevent cyberattacks but instead blocked calls from getting through. The state is reviewing why the firewall activated, but said the interruption was not caused by any cyberattack.