World wide IT dropout

Another media storm from people using technology.

I suppose we are all "using technology" keepingquiet

My monitoring app is now only showing 28 companies/organisations still in the red zone out of several hundred they report on. All my apps are working - bank, supermarket, WhatsApp etc etc. Not saying it hasn't been a significant outage but it's being talked up.

On a positive note we won't starve- Greggs is still operational!

The NHS App isn't working. I don't know about others.

My poor brain went into overload at the word "Crowdstrike"
which I've never heard of and don't understand.

Time to put the kettle on, I think.

I think the world wide outage is down to Cloudstrike, a US company worth billions who supply cyber security software to Microsoft. It issued an update which has caused all these problems. The monetary implications will be immense. .

I hope my asda order goes through today

NotSpaghetti

I suppose we are all "using technology" keepingquiet

My point- no outage here!

JaneJudge

I hope my asda order goes through today

My Sainsbury order was safely delivered so hopefully you will be okay

Dr's have got to actually write out prescriptions what's the world coming too!

Redhead56

Dr's have got to actually write out prescriptions what's the world coming too!

I can’t remember the last time I saw a written prescription. They are handled electronically these days and I suppose a GP would need to consult a patient’s computerised medical record before writing one out.

Glad to learn it wasn’t malevolent. It’ll be repaired soon enough; meanwhile we just keep on going on!

I know I was tongue in cheek we have not been able to see an actual doctor here for over two years.

It didn’t stop Mr Microsoft “Good afternoon, my names Harry…”
Aye right.

My GP surgery has cancelled all appointments for today. You can't book one either. No access to patient's notes.

Times like this one wonders if we poasibly rely too much on technology.

GPs have no access to patients' records, only first line, name and number.
luckily my friend managed to see a GP; wanted the woman she's seen before, tricky situation, but only option was new young male GP, and had to explain her whole situation to him, as no patient history to read.
which is quite triggering in itself.
but, he listened and perhaps because she had to, she managed to tell it like it is, he could see she was affected.
he signed her off for 6 weeks.
which is a relief.

MaizieD

I've been feeling for a long while now that our complete dependence on IT is worrying. This outage doesn't inspire confidence.
What if it had been malicious?

It is always malicious. I truly believe that these sorts of outages ate just tests for the "real thing". That's why it's always important to have an emergency kit and in that kit, keep some cash money, too. You will need it if digital goes down for a lengthy time.

Macadia

MaizieD

I've been feeling for a long while now that our complete dependence on IT is worrying. This outage doesn't inspire confidence.
What if it had been malicious?

It is always malicious. I truly believe that these sorts of outages ate just tests for the "real thing". That's why it's always important to have an emergency kit and in that kit, keep some cash money, too. You will need it if digital goes down for a lengthy time.

There is no evidence this outage is malicious.

As a software developer, I made mistakes in my working life (not on this scale!!) and had to reinstall backups. I certainly wasn’t acting maliciously.

If it were malicious, they wouldn't say until weeks after everything had been fixed. Yes, I am I.T. as well.

News from The Times says, "The US cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike’s latest software update caused Windows computers across the world to shut down,"

keepingquiet

NotSpaghetti

I suppose we are all "using technology" keepingquiet

My point- no outage here!

Domestic systems aren't affected. It's those are networked that are affected apparently.

However, outage can be caused by direct actions of humans. Some years ago a stupid man, up a tree with a chainsaw managed to cut an overhead cable. An area with a radius of around 28km was without power for nearly 2 days. Supermarkets could only take cheques; Bank ATMs and petrol pumps didn't work nor did our home computers. This was late afternoon one Friday and was resolved late Sunday evening.

Joe Tidy
Cyber correspondent
There are suggestions, from the wording of the Crowdstrike CEO, that this dodgy overnight update was supposed to be small.
A "content update" is how it was described. So, it wasn’t a major refresh of the cyber security software. It could have been something as innocuous as the changing of a font or logo on the software design.
That would potentially explain why the software wasn’t as rigorously checked in the same way a major update would have been. And how it sailed through to all computers without being blocked.
But it also poses huge questions to the cyber security company: how could a small update do so much damage?

It also supposes the question of whether Crowdstrike should pay compensation to ll those who suffered financial loss through cancelled flights etc

Crowdstrike will have contracts with the companies who use their services directly.

The people with cancelled flights have different contracts with their carrier or travel agent. They don't have contracts with Crowdstrike - I can't see why Crowdstrike would compensate them!

There would be an awful lot of compensation seeing that is was a worldwide event. Hope no one was badly affected as regards medical procedures and hospital admissions is all.

Watching the very lengthy and nail-biting process of buying property fall literally at the last fence because the transfer of funds on THAT Friday could not go through due to "circumstances beyond our control". Recipe for a terminal nervous breakdown, surely......