CrowdStrike outage, cyberattacks a ‘wake-up call’ to dangers of big tech reliance

The CrowdStrike outage less than two weeks ago left thousands of flights cancelled, hospital delays and payment systems at banks impacted across the globe.

From airlines to banks to car dealerships, a string of outages or cyberattacks in recent months left the public dealing with difficulty accessing services for days on end.

Cybersecurity experts say it should serve as a “wake-up call” in terms of our reliance on big tech — sometimes on single brands that play a central role in how businesses operate.

Just under two weeks ago, thousands of flights were cancelled, delays were seen at hospitals and banks in some countries saw payment systems affected as cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike said a problem occurred with a faulty update, which they said this past Thursday was due to a bug in the firm’s quality control mechanism.

Customers of many North American car dealerships also faced difficulty signing a new loan or filling out other paperwork after CDK Global, which provides key software, was the victim of a cyberattack late last month that shut down its commonly-used system for days.

Levent Ertaul, cybersecurity professor at California State University East Bay, told Global News impacts like this show the vulnerabilities faced when one system or software becomes a default.

“In one day, we saw that the impact of one single error on the very fundamentals of global economy,” he said. “It showed us how dependent we are to those technologies, also how vulnerable we are … against those one single errors.”

CrowdStrike’s update impacted many computers utilizing Windows, which, when the update was pushed, led to the ever-dreaded “blue screen of death” showing up on computer screens.

Delta Air Lines, which saw some of the worst cancellations, returned to “operational reliability” on Thursday, but still faces an investigation by the U.S. Department of Transportation which said it was ensuring the company was following the law and taking care of passengers amid the disruptions.