IT 'catastrophe' reveals need for systems rethink

A WIDESPREAD IT outage affecting sectors from the NHS to transport and banking to media has been described as an unprecedented sign of how exposed services are with a potential overreliance on certain operating systems.

The major disruption could prompt a rethink on whether the most resilient operating systems are being used, according to cybersecurity expert Dr Harjinder Lallie.

The associate professor at the University of Warwick described the situation as an IT “catastrophe”. He said: “The worldwide IT outage experienced this morning is unprecedented in the range and scale of systems it has impacted.” He added: “This IT ‘catastrophe’ highlights the need for greater resilience, a greater focus on back-up systems, and possibly even a need to rethink whether we are using the most resilient operating systems for such critical systems.”