ALBAWABA - A significant system failure in Massachusetts left the 911 emergency assistance line inaccessible for nearly three hours, impacting millions of residents. The exact cause of the outage remains unknown.
Elaine Driscoll, Director of Communications and Policy at the Massachusetts Department of Public Safety and Security, reported that law enforcement first noticed the malfunction around 1:00 PM local time. The disruption prevented millions from reaching emergency services through the 911 number.
During the outage, officials advised residents needing assistance to contact local police, fire, and health departments directly. Fortunately, hospital operations were not affected by the outage.
The Massachusetts State Police confirmed that the issue was resolved by 3:49 PM, allowing citizens to resume using the 911 line for emergency services.
This incident follows a similar pattern of temporary 911 access disruptions in April, which affected the states of Nebraska, Nevada, South Dakota, and Texas. These previous outages prompted the Federal Communications Commission to launch an investigation.
Initial investigations by the State 911 Department and its provider, Comtech, found that a firewall problem caused the recent 911 outage in Massachusetts. On Tuesday, this cyberattack and hacker protection function accidentally banned calls to PSAPs.
Comtech's first investigation found no cyberattack or hacking effort during the downtime. The firewall blocked calls from reaching dispatch centers, although the cause remains unknown. According to the Massachusetts State 911 Department, Comtech has devised a technological solution to avoid future problems.
State 911 Department executive director Frank Pozniak stressed the agency's dedication to provide dependable, cutting-edge 911 services to Massachusetts citizens and tourists. He promised to take all necessary steps to avoid such incidents.
To maintain emergency service dependability, authorities are investigating the firewall malfunction's cause.
