Which Texas state agencies are affected by Microsoft, CrowdStrike outages?

A global technology outage caused by the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike disrupted Microsoft users on Friday morning, leading to grounded flights, halted bank operations, and interruptions in hospital services. Of these affected users are state agencies overseeing infrastructure, safety and transportation.

AUSTIN (Nexstar) — The technology outage that affected companies, agencies and airlines globally Friday morning caused disruptions to Texas state agencies overseeing infrastructure, safety and transportation.

The faulty software update issued by Austin-based cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike also grounded flights, knocked banks offline and media outlets off air worldwide, according to reporting from the Associated Press.

CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz said on X at 4:45 a.m. Friday that the company is “actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts.”

“This is not a security incident or cyberattack,” Kurtz continued in the post. “The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed. We refer customers to the support portal for the latest updates and will continue to provide complete and continuous updates on our website. We further recommend organizations ensure they’re communicating with CrowdStrike representatives through official channels. Our team is fully mobilized to ensure the security and stability of CrowdStrike customers.”

The Texas Secretary of State reported on X Friday morning that several of their systems are down. They said they are working to get them back up.

The Texas Department of Public Safety also announced on X that their Driver's License Offices are affected by the outage. The post detailed that all DLOs will be closed on Friday until they can resolve the issue, but there is no current estimate on when exactly they will be back open.

The Texas Department of Motor Vehicles also reported closures on Friday in a post on X. TxDMV said they were affected by the global CrowdStrike outages and that several of their systems and services were unavailable during that time.

The Texas Military Department told Nexstar that they have not been affected by the outage because they primarily use Starlink, a satellite internet subsidiary of SpaceX owned by Elon Musk.

The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) told Nexstar that none of their public-facing systems have been affected by the CrowdStrike outage. TxDOT did not specify whether their internal systems were affected.

The Railroad Commission of Texas told Nexstar that they experienced a temporary system interruption this morning due to the global CrowdStrike outage but many of those have now been restored. The Commission has not received reports of the outage causing a significant impact on energy operations.  

The Public Utility Commission of Texas posted on X that their website has been affected by the CrowdStrike outage. They reported that they are working to restore the platform.

The Texas Juvenile Justice Department (TJJD) told Nexstar that the CrowdStrike software glitch on Friday affected their IT systems and employee laptops, primarily impacting filing and reporting access. Despite this, gatehouses, security, surveillance, and body cameras remained functional, and daily operations with youth in residence were unaffected.

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) experienced similar complications from the outages with disruptions to internal-facing systems. TDCJ told Nexstar the outage had little impact on the agency’s key operations and, where necessary, it is implementing continuity of operations plans.

CrowdStrike, an Austin-based company, issued a faulty software update Friday morning, which affects all Microsoft 365 platforms. As of February 2024, over 72% of Desktop PC owners use the Windows operating system, according to Statista.