How To Prevent Another IT Failure

CrowdStrike Friday issued a glitched update shortly after midnight Eastern time that caused computers around the world running Microsoft operating systems to display a “blue screen of death.”

For Context: CrowdStrike, a multinational organization providing security software to industries and investigative services for systems compromised by online hackers, instituted a security update that caused Windows 10 systems to suddenly crash. This caused upsets in supply chains, grounded air traffic, and ruled automated teller machines (ATM) unusable. The issue has since been isolated and fixed.

From the Left: Megan McArdle (Center bias), writing for the Washington Post (Lean Left bias), called this the worst Information Technologies (IT) disaster ever, focusing on how it happened and what may be done to ensure against a future occurrence. McArdle said it may not have taken much money to avert this in the first place, as CrowdStrike is only one small link in an ever-more connected global network and economy.

From the Right: The Editorial Board at the New York Post (Right bias) in a headline said we should “take Friday’s IT nightmare as a warning of what a cyberattack could do.” While the event was clearly an accident and not an attack, it should allow us to “imagine what a sophisticated cyberattack might do.” The writers correlated a distinction between “vast convenience and opportunity” and “dangerous dependency.”

Common Ground: Outlets across the spectrum agreed we must better balance efficiency and redundancy to ensure dependable IT in the future.