The Social Security Administration (SSA) closed its local offices on Friday in the midst of a worldwide tech outage impacting CrowdStrike and Microsoft services, it announced in a statement.
Members of the public should also expect “longer wait times” for its national phone number and that “some online services are unavailable at this time.” The agency did not elaborate on what online services won’t be available and when they will be restored.
“We appreciate your patience while we work to restore services as quickly as possible,” the SSA added in its statement, published to its “office closings and emergencies” webpage.
The Epoch Times has contacted the agency for comment.
“We hope it’s all about customer service and all those benefits they have spent their whole life working for, making sure someone answers that 800 number without having to be on hold for an hour and a half, making sure that you or someone in your family needs to have a determination made, that you are so disabled that you can’t work that that happens before you die,” he said in an interview with the news outlet.
Other Outages
The worldwide outage, which was confirmed by CrowdStrike as a technical issue and not a cyberattack, has disrupted banks, flights, hospital services, 911 emergency services, some government services and court systems, and more.“We’re deeply sorry for the impact that we’ve caused to customers, to travelers, to anyone affected by this, including our companies,” CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz said on NBC’s “Today Show” on Friday morning. “We know what the issue is” and are working to fix it, he added.
He said the system was sent an update and the update had a bug in it causing a problem to Microsoft’s Windows operating system. “It was only the Microsoft operating system” that was affected, though it didn’t happen on every Microsoft Windows system, he said.
In a post on social media platform X, Mr. Kurtz said that MacOS and Linux operating systems are not impacted.
Microsoft spokesperson Frank Shaw has confirmed that “a Crowdstrike update was responsible for bringing down a number of Windows systems globally,” he said in a statement. “We are actively supporting customers to assist in their recovery,” he added.
Several government agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Aviation Administration, have said they are working to investigate the matter and are offering their services to deal with the outage. The White House confirmed in a statement that President Joe Biden has been briefed on the matter.
Alaska State Troopers warned that many 911 and non-emergency call centers across the state were not working correctly and shared alternate numbers for areas where 911 wasn’t working. Areas in New Hampshire, Virginia, Ohio, New York, Arizona, and Iowa have also reported 911 outages.
