{
  "id": "2025-09-09-princeton-university-oit-service-disruption",
  "slug": "princeton-university-oit-service-disruption-2025-09-09",
  "institution": {
    "name": "Princeton University",
    "shortName": "Princeton",
    "state": "NJ",
    "type": "private-r1",
    "alertSystemName": "TigerAlert",
    "enrollment": 8500
  },
  "incident": {
    "date": "2025-09-09",
    "type": "infrastructure-failure",
    "cleryCategory": "advisory",
    "resolution": "contained",
    "headline": "Campus IT outage disables SSO and some phones; buildings manually locked",
    "headlinePublic": "Campus IT outage disables SSO and some phones; buildings manually locked",
    "summary": "On September 9, 2025, Princeton [Public Safety issued a TigerAlert update](https://publicsafety.princeton.edu/safety/alerts-warnings/tigeralert-520-pm-update-oit-service-disruption) on an ongoing OIT disruption affecting single sign-on, eduroam Wi-Fi, and some desk phones, with manual locking of administrative and academic buildings and instructions to vacate academic buildings after 8:30 p.m.",
    "outcome": "Critical life-safety systems remained operational; Public Safety and Facilities staffed campus; building access and library hours adjusted for the evening of the outage.",
    "casualties": {
      "killed": 0,
      "injured": 0
    }
  },
  "alerts": [
    {
      "sequence": 1,
      "type": "update",
      "timestamp": "2025-09-09T17:20:00-04:00",
      "channel": "email",
      "verbatimText": "TIGERALERT: The response to the ongoing OIT disruption continues. OIT is engaging with the respective vendor(s) and continues to investigate. Ongoing updates will be posted to: https://oit.princeton.edu/outage\n\nMany Princeton University applications and services are unavailable. At this time, it may not be possible to use the single-sign-on service to sign-in to applications. Campus WiFi via the eduroam network is also affected.\n\nCritical life safety systems such as the fire alarm system and 911 remain operational, but the OIT team has identified that some desk phones are no longer connected to the network. For that reason, the University recommends mobile phones to reach 911 or emergency services.\n\nAdditional personnel from Public Safety and Facilities will be on campus until the outages are resolved.\n\nDue to the unavailability of some systems related to remotely monitoring building access, the following actions will be taken this evening:\n\nAdministrative buildings were manually locked at 5 pm. Card access is disabled.\nAcademic and research buildings will be manually locked at 8:30 pm. In the meantime, local alarm systems such as fume hoods and refrigeration alarms may not work in these buildings. After 8:30 pm, these buildings should be vacated. Only emergency access will be permitted after this time.\nResidence halls will remain on their normal locking schedule. Students should make sure to bring their TigerCards when leaving their buildings as systems enabling temporary cards are not functioning.\nFirestone Library circulation will remain open until 9 pm and the study areas will be open until 11 pm. Firestone Special Collections, the Milberg Gallery, and the Cotsen Children’s Library are closed for the remainder of the day.\nCampus recreational facilities will remain open as scheduled.",
      "isVerbatimConfirmed": true,
      "sourceUrl": "https://publicsafety.princeton.edu/safety/alerts-warnings/tigeralert-520-pm-update-oit-service-disruption",
      "sourceDescription": "Princeton Public Safety Alerts & Warnings — TIGERALERT 5:20 PM Update OIT Service Disruption",
      "annotations": [
        "Full text from the official Public Safety archive page (Last Updated September 9, 2025 at 2:59 p.m. on the page chrome; title is 5:20 PM Update).",
        "Includes protective facility instructions: vacate academic buildings after 8:30 p.m. and use mobile phones for 911."
      ],
      "characterCount": 1817
    }
  ],
  "context": "Princeton's Office of Information Technology experienced a multi-system disruption that Public Safety mirrored as a campus TigerAlert. The [archived 5:20 p.m. update](https://publicsafety.princeton.edu/safety/alerts-warnings/tigeralert-520-pm-update-oit-service-disruption) couples IT status with physical-security workarounds (manual building locks, disabled card access, temporary-card systems down) and directs community members to mobile phones for emergency calling when desk phones lose network connectivity. Ongoing status was pointed to oit.princeton.edu/outage.",
  "keyFindings": [
    "TigerAlert used for IT outage with concrete campus-access and emergency-calling instructions",
    "Message distinguishes life-safety systems still working from applications, Wi-Fi, and desk phones that were not"
  ],
  "sources": [
    {
      "title": "Public Safety TigerAlert — 5:20 PM Update OIT Service Disruption",
      "url": "https://publicsafety.princeton.edu/safety/alerts-warnings/tigeralert-520-pm-update-oit-service-disruption",
      "type": "official-archive"
    },
    {
      "title": "Princeton OIT outage page (linked from the TigerAlert)",
      "url": "https://oit.princeton.edu/outage",
      "type": "official-archive"
    }
  ],
  "confidence": "high",
  "tags": [
    "infrastructure",
    "oit",
    "tigeralert",
    "princeton",
    "outage"
  ],
  "dateAdded": "2026-07-21",
  "lastUpdated": "2026-07-21",
  "addedBy": "ingestion"
}