ATLANTA, GA – Norfolk Southern Corporation is substantially complete with a root-cause analysis of the system outage that occurred on Monday. The company provided the following update on the findings to date:
“We are substantially complete with a root-cause analysis of this outage. To date, we have found no indication that this was related to an unauthorized cybersecurity incident,” Norfolk Southern said in a press release.
Norfolk Southern’s data storage system is manufactured and maintained by a leading global technology provider. During a routine maintenance procedure being performed by a vendor of Norfolk Southern, a defect in their software created an error which caused both of Norfolk Southern’s primary and recovery data storage systems to become unresponsive. This in turn affected its core operational systems.
“We are working closely with the vendor to understand the steps they are taking to strengthen their systems to prevent this incident from reoccurring and identify opportunities for Norfolk Southern to become more resilient,” the press release further stated.
Norfolk Southern said its IT team worked tirelessly to restore its systems, and that its Marketing team worked closely with customers to keep them informed, and its Operations team safely brought the network back online.
“We are making progress on the temporary backlog of trains that resulted from this incident, and expect a full recovery of network fluidity in the coming weeks,” the press release concluded.
Since 1827, Norfolk Southern Corporation (NYSE: NSC) and its predecessor companies have safely moved the goods and materials that drive the U.S. economy. Today, it operates a customer-centric and operations-driven freight transportation network.