Australia was the first in line as the latest global IT outage brought systems to a grinding halt.
At about 9am Sydney time on Friday, it all kicked off, with transport, healthcare, media, and healthcare systems taking the brunt.
Airlines had to cancel flights, TV screens went blank, hospitals were paralysed, and doctors were unable to access records.
A wave of outages went around the world as it woke up. The UK, Israel, and Spain have also reported similar major problems.
The finger of blame is pointing towards the US cybersecurity company called CrowdStrike. It allegedly updated its Falcon software programme, which is used by many blue-chip companies to ironically stop such an event from happening. Falcon acts as a sentinel, looking for problems and cyberattacks. The update patch, once loaded, caused many computers to stop, creating a worldwide catastrophe.
CrowdStrike is under fire for creating such a situation. Other experts wonder why one piece of software could have such far-reaching effects and whether companies should continue to use an ecosystem that is effectively joined together.
Tom Worthington, honorary senior lecturer in the School of Computing at the Australian National University, said this had to stop. He told The Times: “The widespread outages show the risks in relying on a single technology for vital services. There needs to be alternate communication links using different software. This does create an added security and maintenance burden, as multiple products need to be looked after and protected. But if you put all your eggs in one basket, you can end up with it on your face.”
