Global IT outage causes major distruption📢 BCS experts have been offering analysis on a major global IT outage that stems from a faulty update, designed to protect Microsoft Windows devices from hacking. It’s caused travel chaos and disrupted banking and healthcare services and knocked some TV channels off air. The Cyber-security firm Crowdstrike has said the problem was caused by defect to a content update and is not a security incident or cyber attack.🔒 Adam Leon Smith FBCS, and a cyber security expert said on Sky TV: “We have to really look at the systems we've created that we rely on every day and think about the complex supply chain infrastructure that's providing systems services as well as products. We really need to worry about this more from a resilience point of view. One thing I've said to government is we need to start tracking when things like this happen, even the small things, and we need to start understanding the nation’s ability to respond to events.” #Cybersecurity #TechNews #ITOutage
Steve Sands
1mo
Fully functioning IT systems are a prerequisite for almost every aspect of modern life and indeed the global economy. BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT made a number of key recommendations to improve service and software resilience in recent consultations. I sincerely hope that today’s Cowdstrike issues raise awareness and create some much-needed urgency to continue this vital conversation (once we fix all the broken IT)!
Also the importance of rigorous testing before releasing an update to the production environment. The recent MS Outage due to a Crowdstrike platform update is an excellent example.
Alastair Revell
1mo
I was caught in some of the chaos today, but it was certainly good to see colleagues such as Adam Leon Smith FBCS at BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT speaking about the issues at hand. The public should be in no doubt that technology can bring huge benefits, but done badly, or maliciously, it can wreak havoc. It is one of the reasons we are advocating chartered and professional registrations to the incoming government in the United Kingdom.
Samantha Reddy
1mo
Being resilient and knowing how to respond to things when they go wrong is important but todays global outage may have been prevented if there was sufficient protocol in place. I am sure there are many technical people who saw this as inevitable, and who didn't have a voice when decisions are being made. The executives must start to have greater respect for the technical experts. All resolvable with a good understanding of the purpose of the technology. This must change
I was fascinated from a communications angle - the myth busting that was needed to combat everything from 'it's a nuclear war' to 'it's the start of an alien invasion'. When things go wrong, social media commentary will fill the space where there are gaps of information and news updates. I wonder if BCS could act as the truth teller when these things happen via social media to combat the myths?
Colin Hammond
1mo
Software should be tested that it does what it is supposed to, it also needs to be tested that it doesn’t do what it’s not supposed to do. We call this negative testing. More negative tests are needed than positive ones especially when the consequences can be so impactful.
Rich Jordan
1mo
totally agree, would also say we really need to look at guardrails and controls organisations use to create, change and maintain these systems. If an organisation and its governance were independently scrutinised could they really evidence that the design and operation of many of these controls were effective? these things don't need to wait until failure happens but inevitably we don't talk about them until it does.
8-times Award Winning Expert in Technology, Data & Tech Risk | Strategic Advisor | Board Member | TEDx Speaker | LinkedIn Top Voice
1moIt is key that both the Companies, but also the Governments and the regulators as an ecosystem would be more mindful and perhaps concerned about systemic or concentration risk, of being dependent on 1 provider. Whilst today it was Cloudstrike and Microsoft, it could be that the Cloud giants of Amazon, Microsoft or Google could go down in another occasion, and the impact would be fully detrimental, impacting 10s of millions of customers. I believe that going forward there will be a much bigger push from the Regulator to mitigate concentration risk, not only at the level of the Company but also at the level of the Providers that are available to provide the service. I anticipate both tighter regulations, but also tighter scrutiny from the Regulator should the Company prioritise the cost and efficiency over the safety and security of their operations.