Prominent security consultant Troy Hunt said today: ‘this will be the largest IT outage in history.’ And according to live coverage by the BBC:
- Major IT outages are hitting industries across the world, with airlines, broadcasters and supermarkets affected
- American Airlines says none of its flights are taking off and the problems are due to an issue with Crowdstrike cybersecurity software
- Microsoft says it is taking mitigation action, but the cause of the outage hasn’t been confirmed
- In the UK, train companies report delays and some GP surgeries in England are having issues with booking appointments
- Sky News has not been able to broadcast live, its executive chairman says
JUL 19, 2024
What is remarkably prescient is the June 1, 2020 article prepared by the World Economic Forum’s Centre of Cybersecurity with its dire warning of a “global cyber pandemic.” The following extract is taken from the WEF’s website.
COVID-19 is not the only risk with the ability to quickly and exponentially disrupt the way we live. The crisis shows that the world is far more prone to disturbance by pandemics, cyberattacks or environmental tipping points than history indicates.
Our “new normal” isn’t COVID-19 itself – it’s COVID-like incidents.
And a cyber pandemic is probably as inevitable as a future disease pandemic. The time to start thinking about the response is – as always – yesterday…
READ MORE: Global IT Outage Hits But Is It A Surprise? (soniaelijah.com)
Martin comments: My first thought was “a small taste of what a Carrington Event (mega solar flare) would do”. While Microsoft now claim this was “an update glitch” it displays just how fragile our increasingly digital world has become. It also rather conveniently serves as a dry-run for a large scale cyber-attack. Imagine what such an outage would do to the voting machines in the looming US elections…?
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