Friday’s global software outage is flagging a serious weak point in the nation’s digital infrastructure say technology policy experts. Cybersecurity provider CrowdStrike’s recent tech update triggered the disruption to Microsoft Windows and other programs.
It is now considered the largest IT outage in history, and indicates problems ahead as more industries draw from too few service providers.
“The global dependence on one or two providers for essential digital tools is a high stakes game that stands to have devastating real-world consequences,” said Brooke Medina, the John Locke Foundation’s in-house tech policy advisor. “When healthcare, transportation, and financial services are disrupted, we’re no longer talking about minor inconveniences. There will be many lessons to learn from this incident, but one that all businesses and policymakers should consider is the danger of consolidating services to such a degree that there is widespread global impact.”
Airports and airlines are among the hardest hit in the disruption. Raleigh Durham International Airport is back up and running, after airline employees scrambled to rebook thousands of passengers on flights later this weekend. Disruption to air travel could continue for a few more days.
“It’s become an almost annual occurrence for the airlines to experience some sort of technology crisis that affects millions of passengers,” said one North Carolina airline pilot on the condition of anonymity. “Today was projected to be one of the busiest flying days of the year. The ripple effect will cause huge headaches for travelers everywhere. Investment in technology infrastructure and security must become a higher priority.”
This is going to hurt your travel and healthcare today
— Carl Szabo (@CarlSzabo) July 19, 2024
Huge Microsoft/Crowdstrike Outage all over the world, shutting down services in hospitals, grounding airplanes, interrupting banking, and much more.
Part of the problem is the result of an over-reliance on a single…
Meantime, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security says it is working with CrowdStrike, Microsoft and federal, state, local and critical infrastructure partners to fully assess the extent of damage and outage. CrowdStrike has published work-around instructions for users.
However, other policy experts point out that Google is not among the platforms taken down by the problem, evidence that the world’s digital eggs are not in one basket after all. In March, the U.S. Department of Justice sued Apple for anti-trust violations with the iPhone, and last year sued Google for “monopolizing” the search engine market.
Giant global IT outage. It’s none of the companies being sued or attacked by antitrust officials in the US and EU. It’s a firm most people probably haven’t heard of.
— Patrick Hedger (@pat_hedger) July 19, 2024
My Gmail, WhatsApp, and iCloud… all fine.
Before this week, CrowdStrike was best known for being hired by the Democratic National Committee to investigate a 2016 hack of the DNC. The Texas-based company provides services across private industry and some parts of federal and local government, including election security. Shares of CrowdStrike stock closed down 11% at the end of trading on Friday.