The global technology outage Friday morning disrupted flights, banks, hospitals and other small businesses and media outlets, but in the Bay Area, the meltdown also meant that local courthouses were forced to delay many actions.
Alameda County and Santa Clara County courts released statements that they have been experiencing disruptions to their computer systems Friday morning and warned the public to expect delays.
The outage was caused by a faulty software update issued by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, not a hacking incident or a cyberattack, officials said. The beleaguered update affected computers that were running Microsoft Windows, and the company apologized and said a fix was on the way.
The Superior Court of Alameda County stated that that “our two primary case management systems and dozens of computers either did not work or had limited capabilities” and told people using the court’s services to have patience and expect delays. In the meantime, the court remains open and anyone scheduled to appear in court was still required to attend.
“We are diligently working to repair our systems,” said Presiding Judge Thomas Nixon in Alameda County said in a statement. “Our dedicated staff from our office of information technology to our clerks will continue to ensure our community has access to the Courts.”
In Santa Clara County, desktop devices across all court houses were affected by the outage, leading to their Information Technology team to work overnight to restore their network and systems.
To keep disruptions at a minimum and continue providing critical court services, the court stated they were prioritizing courtrooms with morning appointments, ensuring that safety and security-related equipment still worked and maintaining service at the Clerk’s Office public service windows.
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“We appreciate the public’s patience and understanding as we address this challenge,” the court stated.
Dan Radovich, a communications officer and ADA coordinator with the San Mateo County Superior Court, said in an email to Bay Area News Group that the court is experiencing “residual impacts” from the outage and users may see delays. However, the court is still open and stated that anyone scheduled to appear in court is still required to do so.
However, Contra Costa County’s court system was not completely taken offline during the outage. A Contra Costa County spokesperson said that the outage had no operational impact to its services, and people required to appear in court can do so in-person or remotely.
Alternatively, although the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office is open to the public, a spokesperson said that their Information Technology staff is working on restoring connectivity to network systems affected by the outage, and some workstations were partially restored.