Behind global IT outage

‘ERROR’: ONE SMALL UPDATE BROUGHT DOWN MILLIONS OF TECH SYSTEMS

- David Tuffley

It was a timely warning on cybersecurity as Microsoft Windows computers worldwide crashed.

Last weekend's global IT outage caused by a software update gone wrong highlights the interconnected and often fragile nature of modern IT infrastructure. It demonstrates how a single point of failure can have far-reaching consequences.

The outage was linked to a single update automatically rolled out to CrowdStrike Falcon, a ubiquitous cybersecurity tool used primarily by large organisations. This caused Microsoft Windows computers around the world to crash.

CrowdStrike has since fixed the problem on their end

While many organisations have been able to resume work now, it will take some time for IT teams to fully repair all the affected systems some of that work has to be done manually.

How could this happen?

Many organisations rely on the same cloud providers and cybersecurity solutions. The result is a form of digital monoculture.

While this standardisation means computer systems can run efficiently and are widely compatible, it also means a problem can cascade across many industries and geographies. As we've now seen in the case of CrowdStrike, it can even cascade around the entire globe.