Datacentre ‘malfunction’ at Dutch defence ministry impacts emergency services
The Dutch National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC-NL) classified the disruption as a ‘national outage’ and stated that it is actively working to assess the full scope of the incident.
An unknown malfunction at a data centre utilised by the Dutch Ministry of Defence (MoD) has triggered extensive disruptions across the country and particularly impacted air traffic control, leading to the grounding of civilian flights. Additionally, emergency services and government operations have been affected, with MoD employees and civil servants from other departments unable to access their workstations due to network issues.
The Ministry of Defence shared on social media that it is experiencing significant IT network problems, causing login failures and impacting service provision, including the inaccessibility of certain telephone numbers. The Dutch National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC-NL) classified the disruption as a ‘national outage’ and stated that it is actively working to assess the full scope of the incident.
The exact nature of the malfunction, including whether it is related to a cyberattack, remains undetermined. Eindhoven Airport, which also serves military functions, has announced flight cancellations due to the incident. However, Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, the country’s busiest, has not reported any disturbances so far.