"Massachusetts 911 Outage Caused by Errant Firewall"

It has recently been announced that a statewide outage of the 911 emergency response system in Massachusetts this week was caused by an errant firewall that prevented calls from getting to the 911 dispatch centers.  The Massachusetts  Executive Office of Public Safety and Security described the two-hour outage on Tuesday as a “technical issue” with its 911 vendor Comtech that was the result of a firewall installed to provide protection against cyberattacks and hacking.  Comtech’s initial review of the incident has confirmed that the interruption was not the result of a cyberattack or hack.  However, the exact reason the firewall stopped calls from reaching dispatch centers remains under review.  The agency noted that although some emergency calls were unsuccessful, the system allows dispatch centers to identify the phone numbers of callers and return those calls.  The department said it did not receive any reports of emergencies impacted during the interruption.

SecurityWeek reports: "Massachusetts 911 Outage Caused by Errant Firewall"