Police scene Credit: Geralt / Pixabay.com
The intermittent disruptions within Pennsylvania’s Next-Generation 9-1-1 (NG911) system were traced to an operating system flaw that affected call deliver
A “defect” in an operating system and not a cyberattack was the cause of the widespread 9-1-1 outage that impacted Bucks County and the entire state earlier this month.
The intermittent disruptions within Pennsylvania’s Next-Generation 9-1-1 (NG911) system were traced to an operating system flaw that affected call delivery, according to a preliminary report released by the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency (PEMA) on Tuesday.
Officials stated there is no evidence to suggest the outages were the result of malicious cyber activity.
“As soon as the intermittent outages started, our vendors and partner public safety organizations began to investigate the cause and take steps to resolve the issue,” said PEMA Executive Deputy Director Jeff Boyle. “We activated the Emergency Alert System and issued Wireless Emergency Alerts as a precautionary measure to notify everyone in Pennsylvania of the issue and to follow county-based back up plans should they not be able to reach the 9-1-1 centers by calling the traditional three-digit phone number.”
The NG911 system relies on Next Generation Core Services (NGCS), which are the systems and components responsible for processing and routing calls from phones to 9-1-1 centers. Pennsylvania’s NG911 system uses four instances of the NGCS, housed in two data centers. When a caller dials 9-1-1, the call is transported to one of these data centers, where the NGCS determines the caller’s location and directs the call to the appropriate Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP), which is the county 9-1-1 center, for dispatch.
In a statement, PEMA thanked the staff at the 61 PSAPs across the state for their dedication during the disruption.
A more detailed analysis of the issue and plans for improving system redundancy are ongoing, officials said.
PEMA said additional non-security-sensitive information to be released upon completion of the analysis.
PEMA recommends that residents save their county’s 10-digit non-emergency 9-1-1 center number as part of their personal preparedness plan. For Bucks County residents, the non-emergency number is 215-328-8500.
The Bucks County Emergency Communications Center handled 71,299 calls in June, predominantly for police incidents, followed by emergency medical and fire-related calls.
