Global IT outage affects daily operations for New Mexicans

NEW MEXICO (KRQE) – Daily operations were stalled for many businesses and government agencies in Albuquerque and the surrounding areas because of the CrowdStrike outage, which disabled many Microsoft services. But Bernalillo County officials say it could have been much worse. “In New Mexico, we appear to have fared very well. Bernalillo County doesn’t use the security software that is the root cause of the problem,” said Robert Benavidez, Bernalillo County Chief Public Information Officer.

Story continues below

• Politics: Lawmakers stop NM governor’s attempt to pass crime bills in special session
• Community: Rehab facility in Albuquerque will be built despite concerns
• News: Albuquerque police chief will not be criminally charged for causing crash
• Trending: Second mosquito season hits Albuquerque

The county and the city said most of their infrastructure was not impacted but there were problems with systems operated by third-party vendors. “As an example, Bernalillo County uses a system for assessing property tax and then collecting those property taxes. That vendor system is one of the ones that has been impacted.”

While Microsoft had a solution in place for that vendor within an hour of Thursday’s outage, problems persist. “So right now, it’s really just cleaning up those impacts and so most of those vendors have already taken those steps and the couple that still remain already know what they need to do to restore their services,” said Benavidez.

Meanwhile, Los Alamos County was able to restore its websites knocked out by the outage. They are still facing problems preventing staff from processing documents like building permits and business licenses. The IT issues don’t stop there. “But I do know that some medical facilities are deferring non-critical procedures until they have restoration,” said Benavidez.

Presbyterian Healthcare Services told KRQE News 13 that their systems were affected, but they were back up and running within four hours as they continue to restore lower priority systems ensuring patient care has not been affected.

The Bank of Albuquerque delayed opening at some of its locations to allow for outage issues to be solved.

The Albuquerque International Sunport dealt with minor issues as well. “Luckily the Sunport has been not nearly as affected as other larger markets were affected, and we still will continue to be affected but we are starting to stabilize and there will be some delays because of this outage,” said Leah Black, Albuquerque International Sunport.

The Sunport said their systems have slowly come back up but advised travelers to check with their airlines ahead of time.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KRQE NEWS 13 - Breaking News, Albuquerque News, New Mexico News, Weather, and Videos.