Mass cyber outage highlights the dangers of digital globalisation
Just like that, systems fail and millions are impacted.
Photo: ASJ
In one of the most widespread IT failures the world has ever seen, countless Microsoft systems went down due to a botched CrowdStrike security update. On the surface level, it highlights just how dangerous our reliance on digital behemoths can be in the modern world.. but is there more to the story?
WORLDWIDE OUTAGE
The warp-speed digitalisation of our economies and societies has created huge vulnerabilities for the future, as yesterday’s worldwide IT outage demonstrated.
The scale of this most recent failure – “the largest IT outage in history” – underscores the vulnerabilities in our increasingly digital world and highlights the far-reaching implications of cyber threats on stability.
The global cyber outage that contributed to market declines has been blamed on a flawed software update from cybersecurity company CrowdStrike, causing so-called “blue screens of death” to appear on computers running Microsoft’s Windows operating system.
The digital paralysis rapidly spread around the world causing disruption at banks, airports, hospitals, television stations and many other organisations. Australian and U.S. airline operators, British doctors and French Olympic Games organisers were among those affected.
Photo: SNU
Photo: SJU
Yesterday’s meltdown highlights the worrying dependence of so many organisations on interconnected worldwide digital infrastructure, and the fragility of modern economies.
CrowdStrike, which has 29,000 customers across the world, said it was working to solve the problem.
The economy has become ever more interconnected because of the digital realm. Globalisation may be slowing, but e-globalisation is still accelerating.
Mainly U.S. and Chinese software and digital services have been embedded in the operations of millions of organisations, and the daily lives of billions of individuals.
And, as such, a single update gone rogue – a glitch in the security matrix – sent shivers down the spines of CEOs and grounded airplanes faster than a rogue drone in restricted airspace.
While technology has revolutionised how we live and work, it has also made us incredibly dependent on a few key players in the tech industry. When something goes wrong, the ripple effects can be catastrophic.
The fact that a single update from one provider could plunge so many companies into chaos serves as a fresh warning about the world’s fragile technological dependence.
As companies and individuals increasingly rely on automated tools powered by artificial intelligence, each new disruption feels more ominous as time goes on.
And, perhaps, it is all by design..
A LITTLE TOO FISHY
The so-called ‘conspiracy theorists’ have been warning of this type of incident, and worse to come, for many years now. Past outages, like the Google failure in 2020, also locked millions out of essential tools.
This has happened time-and-time again, slowly getting more severe in nature over time.
Could all of these ‘outages’ we are seeing merely test runs for a more catastrophic event?
I often think back to 2015 when Google’s Vice-President, Vint Cerf, who is coined as a “father of the internet”, said he was worried that all documents we have been saving on computers will be lost.
He fears that future generations will have little or no record of the 21st Century as we enter what he describes as a “digital Dark Age”.
Now, we turn to our good friends at the World Economic Forum (WEF), who staged a ‘cyber attack exercise’ to prepare for a “potential cyber pandemic” a few years back — one that founder Klaus Schwab said will be worse than the COVID-19 ‘crisis’. An event they also ‘simulated’ for with Event 201.
Cyber Polygon simulates a fictional cyber attack with participants from dozens of countries responding to “a targeted supply chain attack on a corporate ecosystem in real time.”
Since this event, as I mentioned, cyber ‘events’ have been getting worse and worse.
Do they know of something coming that the world doesn’t?
We have also discussed how these types of ‘attacks’ and ‘failures’ are also linked to the rollout of a national identity system, amid calls for the government to build a ‘new technology infrastructure’ that would ‘reduce the risk of identity theft’ following the 2022 Optus data breach.
Everything just seems all a little ‘coincidental’ for my liking, despite cries there was no foul play.
I have read, but haven’t confirmed, that CrowdStrike has previously been in the news for controversies during prior U.S. presidential affairs, and has deep state security written all over it.
Let’s also not forget the programming that chaos is on the way in the form of cyber outages.
The new disaster film on Netflix called Leave the World Behind is all about foreign cyber attacks against U.S. infrastructure and the societal collapse within the U.S. in the wake of those attacks.
All produced by former U.S. President, Barack Obama.
In 2022, The Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) warned Australian businesses to “urgently adopt an enhanced cybersecurity posture” to protect themselves against targeted cybercriminal activity.
The list of examples and warnings goes on and on.
The fragile nature of our digital societies has once again been exposed with this unprecedented digital outage, and once again, those who champion for a return to the ‘old ways’ are left validated again.
Hopefully these incidents are waking people up to the threat that corporatisation is having on the world, particularly in a digital economy, and more resistance to the mass virtual shift is heard.
Because, by the looks of it, the world is entering uncharted territory with instability and the rise of AI, and there has never been a more important time to regain control of the very systems that keep us running.
What are your thoughts on these mass cyber outages?
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