Airports across the U.S. affected by customs computer outage

Travelers at O'Hare International Airport on December 23, 2016.
(Image credit: Joshua Lott/Getty Images)

U.S. Customs and Border Protection said a "temporary outage" with the agency's processing systems on Monday night caused delays of up to three hours at airports across the country.

A spokesman for Customs and Border Protection told NBC News that all airports are back online, and there is no indication the disruption was malicious. After the outage was reported, international travelers were processed through "alternative procedures," the agency said, with officers maintaining "the highest level of security." The outage was first reported at 5 p.m. ET, and computers slowly started to come back online at 9 p.m. ET.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.