‘Put a damper in my day’: DMV residents impacted by global cyber outage

WASHINGTON ( DC News Now ) — Friday’s global cyber outage prompted people across the DMV to wake up to disruptions with banking systems, flight delays, logging in to work-related virtual meetings and more.

Airline passengers in particular felt the brunt of the outage.

A six-hour delay was cited by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) for flights from Reagan National and Dulles International Airports to Atlanta – a major hub for connections.

“My daughter and my wife are upset of course because they just worry about what should I do if the flight [is] delayed and delayed, so it’s going to be another one day probably stay in the airport,” said Rachmad Poetranto at Reagan National. “That’s what they worry.”

The outage comes one day after TSA recorded its third busiest day in its 22-year history.

The figurative “blue screen of death” could be seen across the world as Microsoft users were blocked from using their systems after an antivirus software company called CrowdStrike said a system update caused the problem.

So, why such a wide impact? Scott White, a cybersecurity professor at George Washington University said, “We have a monopoly in terms of Microsoft. It’s global.“

A Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) employee in Alexandria diverted would-be customers because of the outage. The department announced Friday morning on X that all in-person and online business was closed until problems could be resolved.

One customer, Alexander Owens, said the closure “put a damper in my day.”

He told the DMV employee that the business should get rid of its tech and “go back to paper and pencil.”

Latrice Coleman said she went to the DMV to get the new REAL ID Driver’s License before learning of its closure. Her concerns about Microsoft system issues lingered past Friday, however.

“I have a flight Tuesday,” she said. “So hopefully everything is fixed by then.”

Shortly before 2 p.m., the DMV said 73 of their 76 in-person locations reopened — Chesterfield, Henrico and Charlottesville remained closed.

Maryland officials announced the closure of their court systems early Friday morning.

“All Maryland courts, offices, and facilities will be closed to the public today but will remain open for emergency matters. All clerks’ offices are closed,” a press release read.

As of now, things are still unclear about what comes next.

“They’re [CrowdStrike] going to audit to see the trail of what was done with that fix initially with the update. How was it analyzed? They’re gonna spend a little bit more time. Who are the decision-making authorities?” White suggested.

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