Error in software code was root cause of major outage in the Netherlands

Due to an error in the software code, governmental institutions and service providers weren’t able to connect to an important IT network from the Department of Defense, causing a major shutdown of numerous public services.

An outage in the Netherlands Armed Forces Integrated Network (NAFIN), caused major problems in the Netherlands on Wednesday. This is a heavily secured and important communication network for the Dutch government and service providers, including emergency services.

For example, the Royal Netherlands Marechaussee, responsible for safeguarding the border security of the Netherlands, wasn’t able to provide emergency passports due to the outage. Staff members of the Dutch parliament said they couldn’t log in to their accounts.

The Dutch coastguard, emergency services, Eindhoven Airport, and several departments and municipalities were also affected by the outage. DigiD, an identification and authorization tool people use to arrange their affairs with local and national government parties, was down as well. Applying for a new passport or driver’s license had to be postponed.

Because of the outage, no planes could land or take off until 17:00 at Eindhoven Airport. Some flights were diverted via Schiphol, Brussels, and Weeze. Emergency number 112 was available, so there were no consequences for providing emergency services.

At first experts thought a cyberattack was the root cause for the outage. After a few hours they found out there was no indication that the outage was caused by a malicious threat actor.

“The cause of the problem was in the access provision to the so-called NAFIN network. Due to an error in the software code, it was not possible to connect to this network. All of this shows once again how important it is for IT systems to be resilient,” Secretary of Defense Ruben Brekelmans explained on X.

The Department of Defense, responsible for the maintenance of the NAFIN network, will keep on monitoring the situation closely. Furthermore, Brekelmans promised to evaluate the disruption with all parties involved.