Major Consequences of IT Outage
ECE/Khoury Professor Kevin Fu and ECE Professor and Interim Chair Josep Jornet explain the causes and implications of the Microsoft tech outage that grounded flights from major airlines and limited healthcare and financial services worldwide.
This article originally appeared on Northeastern Global News. It was published by Cesareo Contreras. Main photo: Numerous passengers wait in front of a black display board at the capital’s BER airport. Air traffic has been suspended at BER Airport. AP Photo by: Christoph Soeder
A global IT outage has knocked thousands of Microsoft computers offline. Northeastern experts explain what this means
Flights were being canceled around the world. Bank and hospital systems were in a deadlock. TV stations were scrambling, and 911 services were down in multiple states.
These were just a few of the challenges stemming from a major IT outage on Friday causing Windows PCs around the world to malfunction and get the dreaded Blue Screen of Death.
The outage can be traced back to a single defective software update issued by Crowdstrike, a U.S-based cybersecurity company that provides security software services to nearly 300 Fortune 500 companies.
Crowdstrike CEO George Kurts said in a post on X Friday morning that “a fix has been deployed” and stressed the outage was not the result of a cyberattack or security breach.
Josep Jornet Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering says cloud-enabled devices are more vulnerable to attacks. Photo by Matthew Modoono/Northeastern University
It could be a while for the update to go through for everyone, and users have found a workaround that involves booting the PC in Safe Mode and deleting the file containing the update on the back end; however, that isn’t a perfect solution for everyone.
Additionally, some people have found that rebooting their PCs as many as 15 times could also fix the issue, according to Microsoft.
Kevin Fu, a Northeastern University professor of electrical and computer engineering and cybersecurity adviser to the White House, said the incident “calls into question the fundamentals.”
“What’s really a gut punch is that this is a cybersecurity company, which is a type of company that should be the world’s expert in keeping systems highly available, but it did the opposite,” he adds.
It’s a frustrating and dangerous predicament for consumers to be in, he notes. He points to the outage’s impact on hospital systems since patient care is time sensitive. Given the scope of industries affected and the duration of the outages, Fu says it’s likely that the economy will likely take a big financial hit.
Read full story at Northeastern Global News