Hardware malfunction causes outages on ISO-NE networks

Beginning around 2 p.m. on Wednesday, May 18, a critical hardware malfunction affected ISO New England’s computer networks. This outage affected the network connectivity of the ISO’s email, internet, public website, and market software applications, among others. There is no evidence to indicate this was a malicious attack.

The ISO’s IT staff diagnosed the problem and brought the networks back online. Network connectivity was resolved around 8 p.m. Power system reliability was not affected.

The ISO will be conducting a thorough review of the outage to determine its cause, and taking necessary steps to prevent similar disruptions in the future.