The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) on Friday announced that its FHA Connection (FHAC) portal — which provides FHA-approved lenders and business partners with secure online access to computer systems at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) — has experienced outages in certain core services, coinciding with a widely reported global technology outage stemming from issues at major U.S. tech providers.
“HUD is currently experiencing issues with users’ ability to log into or utilize various applications,” the department said Friday morning. “FHA is aware of the issue and is working to identify the cause and resolution. We will provide notification when the issue has been resolved. We apologize for any inconvenience.”
HousingWire reached out to representatives at HUD and FHA for details on whether the global outage and the FHAC issues are related but did not receive an immediate response. A tech support email response to HousingWire said that the issue had been resolved as of Friday afternoon.
“We are aware of the issues with the FHA Connection this morning,” the support email said. “We immediately reported the issue to the proper HUD personnel after collecting some information that may assist them on determining the cause of the issue. The issue has since been resolved.”
Users are advised to try to log into FHAC again and report any persistent issues.
ICE Mortgage Technologies also confirmed that its Encompass loan origination system was impacted by the incident. The company first reported “technical difficulties” on Encompass, Velocify and DDA services at 1:45 a.m. Pacific Time. At 8:22 a.m. PT, multiple investors reported issues with populating updated rate sheets at the Encompass Product and Pricing Service.
“Like so many others in this interconnected world, we experienced some isolated complications related to the outage,” a spokesperson for ICE wrote to HousingWire. “That said, I’m happy to report that all ICE Mortgage Technology systems are online and operational while our team works through any potential residual issues.”
A Nationwide Multistate Licensing System (NMLS) spokesperson said the system “was impacted briefly due to an issue with CrowdStrike but is up and running.”
The tech outage, which impacted Microsoft Windows computer systems and its Azure cloud service running software from technology security firm CrowdStrike, has led to cascading issues in important industries including technology, health care, air travel and emergency services.
Flights across the U.S. are experiencing delays or cancellations, while 911 services have reportedly been impacted across multiple states, according to the The Washington Post.
The issues appear to stem from an update issued by CrowdStrike for its security software, which is used across the global technology marketplace. Company CEO George Kurtz said in an appearance on NBC’s “Today” on Friday morning that the issue is not related to a cyberattack but is tied to an issue with a software update.
Microsoft is a major tech provider to the U.S. government, and multiple federal agencies have reported that their systems have been impacted, according to reporting at FedScoop, an outlet focused on tech matters related to government infrastructure.
The Social Security Administration reported that local Social Security offices nationwide are closed Friday due to “widespread IT outages due to the global Microsoft and Crowdstrike issues.”
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has also weighed in, saying in a post on X that DHS and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency ”are working with CrowdStrike, Microsoft and our federal, state, local and critical infrastructure partners to fully assess and address system outages.”
Flávia Furlan Nunes contributed reporting for this story.
