East Hudson Valley News

Despite a worldwide technology outage that affected millions of Microsoft Windows users today, County Executive Sue Serino announced that Dutchess County’s Office of Central and Information Services (OCIS) team managed to quickly restore government operations with minimal disruption to residents.

OCIS learned of the global outage, caused by a software update from cybersecurity vendor CrowdStrike, at 12:30 a.m. Friday. OCIS Acting Commissioner Steve Oscarlece and his team worked through the early morning hours to get servers back online swiftly, prioritizing public safety operations including the County’s 911 Communication Center, 988 HELPLINE, and the Dutchess County Sheriff’s Office. The OCIS team has been installing the corrective patch on hundreds of county-issued computers running the Windows operating system.

County Executive Sue Serino stated, “Our team at OCIS did an amazing job to get our computers up and running again, with barely any impact on the residents who rely on Dutchess County’s services and programs. We always remain on guard for the next challenge to our computer network – whether it’s a glitch like today’s or a malicious threat from bad actors – and we thank our OCIS employees for their constant vigilance and quick action.”

Certain county departments including Community and Family Services and the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), which are connected to New York State’s computer network, are still affected by the outage until the state system is fully restored. The DMV remains unable to process transactions.

County Executive Serino and OCIS warned residents that malicious actors are actively attempting to exploit the current situation. Residents should be cautious of emails or phone calls claiming to be from CrowdStrike and refrain from performing any actions requested by such communications.