Global IT services outage at State Department resolved
The State Department resolved its global IT services outage around 1 a.m. EST Friday, a spokesperson told FedScoop.
A defect found in a recently deployed operating system patch caused the disruption to applications including unclassified email, which affected “many users” around the department Thursday, the spokesperson said.
Employees began reporting their email was down Thursday morning, stoking fears of a possible cyberattack. The affected applications are now operating normally.
“Of course, you know, the State Department takes seriously its responsibility to not only safeguard our information and our systems but also for the safety and security of our employees and personnel,” said spokesperson Jalina Porter, during a press call Friday. “At this time we don’t have any indication that this outage had anything to do with malicious activity, and again we’re proud to say that it’s a thing of the past as of now.”
The State Department‘s workforce consists of about 13,000 Foreign Service members, 11,000 civil service employees and 45,000 locally employed staff across 273 diplomatic posts worldwide. The department didn’t divulge how many of them were impacted by the outage.
