BTN News: A mistake by a person caused big problems around the world yesterday. This led to flights being canceled, hospital systems failing, digital payments stopping, critical services being interrupted, and many offices halting work. The problem came from an update in Falcon, the main antivirus software from the U.S. cybersecurity company CrowdStrike. The update had a code error that made computers using Microsoft’s Windows operating system crash. Windows is the most used operating system by businesses.
The timing made things worse because it happened just before a Friday in July, which made the chaos bigger. Summer weekends have more airport activity, making the problem worse. The exact number of people affected is still unknown, but it is expected to be high because of the thousands of disrupted flights.
Technical teams in companies worked hard to fix the “blue screen of death,” a common Windows error message. Authorities from affected countries, like India, Germany, Spain, and the U.S., tried to calm people and gave instructions to help fix the problem. The main solution was to delete the update file from CrowdStrike, but this could be hard in some cases.
Some experts are saying this is the biggest IT failure in history, while others say we need more time to know the full impact. Junade Ali, a cybersecurity expert, told SMC that this disruption is huge and could be bigger than the WannaCry attacks of 2017. But Santiago Escobar, a director at Incibe-UPV and VRAIN institute, thinks comparing this to WannaCry is too much. He said WannaCry, a ransomware attack, affected at least 300,000 computers in 150 countries.
The CrowdStrike problem was not intentional. “Someone changed the code without proper checks,” Escobar explained. WannaCry was a deliberate ransomware attack by the North Korean Lazarus Group, aiming for money. It is the most damaging cyberattack in history.
Other experts compare this to past software issues, like the Y2K problem, and smaller glitches like the Call of Duty: Warzone update. Erisa Karafili from the University of Southampton said this event is like what was feared during Y2K. Troy Hunt, a cybersecurity expert, agreed, saying the timing is just different.
Adam Leon Smith, another cybersecurity expert, noted that things could have been worse. He said critical infrastructure mainly uses Linux, not Windows, which helped reduce some damage. Smith thinks some solutions might be quick, but fixing all affected computers could take weeks due to the number involved and the complicated errors.
Big IT Failures in Recent History
The CrowdStrike problem is not the first major IT failure. In May 2017, a system crash at British Airways canceled all flights from Heathrow and Gatwick airports, affecting 75,000 passengers. On December 14, 2020, Google services like Gmail, Google Docs, and YouTube had a worldwide outage due to a login system problem.
In June 2021, an issue with Fastly’s content network caused thousands of websites to go offline, including Amazon, Twitch, The New York Times, and Reddit. On October 4, 2021, Meta had a seven-hour outage affecting Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. In July 2022, a problem with Akamai’s cloud services disrupted companies like Airbnb, PlayStation Network, Steam, Delta Air Lines, Costco, American Express, BBVA, and EL PAÍS. In December 2022, two months after Elon Musk bought Twitter, the platform had access issues.
Historic Cyberattacks and Their Impacts
Accidental mistakes can cause big problems, but cyberattacks can also be very damaging. On May 12, 2017, the WannaCry ransomware attack hit over 300,000 computers worldwide. Screens went black, and a message demanded $300 in bitcoins to unlock files. This attack paralyzed many businesses quickly, causing about $4 billion in losses.
A year before, in 2016, the Petya ransomware spread through PDF files and cost the shipping company Maersk around €250 million. In March 2017, a month before WannaCry, the NotPetya malware appeared. It infected systems worldwide without needing user action, encrypting data without an option to unlock it. Later, it was linked to groups near the Kremlin targeting Ukraine but spread globally.
Stuxnet, a politically motivated virus, appeared in 2010. It was introduced via a USB drive into a computer at an Iranian nuclear plant. This worm spread through local networks, stole information, and self-destructed. Stuxnet affected around 100,000 systems, mostly in Iran, and slowed down Iran’s uranium enrichment program. The creators are unknown, but it is believed to be from Israeli or U.S. intelligence due to its complexity.
Conclusion
The recent CrowdStrike incident shows how vulnerable global systems are to human error and cyberattacks. While some issues may be fixed quickly, it could take weeks to recover fully from such widespread problems. As technology keeps advancing, having strong cybersecurity measures and regular system checks is more important than ever.
