Worldwide IT outage reveals fragility of a global commerce web that depends on a single operating system
A failure in the interconnected web that constitutes the global supply chain threatens to disrupt daily commerce for an indefinite period, showing how widespread reliance on the same system can create a worldwide crisis when that system goes down.
A failure in the interconnected web that constitutes the global supply chain threatens to disrupt daily commerce for an indefinite period, showing how widespread reliance on the same system can create a worldwide crisis when that system goes down.
It was still not known Friday morning how long it would take to address the issue, which cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike attributed to an improperly executed update on Microsoft systems.
Although Microsoft itself was not directly responsible for the outage, the worldwide reliance on a single common operating system and a major cybersecurity company, while useful when everything is running smoothly, creates the potential for a single point of failure to take down the entire planet, experts say.
In addition to many major airlines being unable to clear flights for takeoff, everything from port authorities to train systems, alongside hospitals and banks, were affected.
Wesley Miller, a research analyst and former Microsoft employee who writes about IT issues, said the outage shows the price of interconnectedness and the dangers of market concentration.
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