The Microsoft Outage Explained: How It Happened

one small computer update gone wrong and the  world comes to a crashing halt so as we navigate   our increasingly digital world is the largest  IT outage in history a wakeup call on just how   vulnerable we've become flight grounded it stinks  it's scary Banks medor Outlets government agencies   hospital and Emergency Services plunged into  chaos one flaw can cause absolute chaos and havoc   on critical infrastructures globally the depth of  the world's dependence on big Tech exposed Windows   operates three out of every four desktop computers  how did we allow for one company one entity to   control whether or not America and the rest of the  world can be in business Microsoft reports 8 and a   half million devices were hit by Friday's outage  less than 1% of all windows machines the cause a   botched software update by cyber security company  crowd strike you on musk posted on X that he has   deleted crowd strike from all of his systems crowd  strike is a very respectable company they test   and they test and they test so someone really  dropped the ball shares of crowd strike taking   a battering today in the market crowd strike  is closed to 30,000 customers including nearly   300 members of The Fortune 500 no wonder when  there's a mishap at at crowd strike it affects   the globe this may well turn out to be in terms  of the actual impact on personal and Commercial   commercial lives the biggest cyber and computer  incident ever but today amid calls to trust our   software suppliers they're a trusted company  with trusted products the price of a digitized   world and the dangers of monopolization has been  Li bear we've let vulnerabilities creep into the   system and one of those big vulnerabilities  is concentration so as the world recovers   from the chaos we know what the issue is uh we're  resolving and have resolved the issue is it time   we rethink our reliance on digital technology  and the handful of major companies who provide   it and it requires a major dialogue with the  tech industry it requires looking strategically   at high tech evolves because you're not going  to rip this all out and start again how did   we design a system that could take down the world  Dr Toby Fein is Australia's former Ambassador for   cyber Affairs and critical technology Toby were  you surprised that one company's era could have   such a catastrophic Fallout I tell you what  I mean it's it's evidence of the fact that we   now live in this Global Tech ecosystem where  one company can have a huge difference we do   have this Global Tech interdependency now and I  think this has been quite um an extreme example   of where you know if something does go wrong or  a mistake is made um it can impact just so widely   across the globe is this all from just one person  entering a bad line of code like can can we blame   this all on just one guy how did did this happen  oh my God you know I I would I would hate it if   you could because that one guy you know um they  would be sweating and they wouldn't be wouldn't   be in a great place right now laying the blame  at the the feet of one individual I think would   be a pretty raw deal however you know this is um  the impacts that we've seen 8.5 million Microsoft   devices Microsoft Windows devices being impacted  if we compare that to and I know this was a cyber   incident not an attack but if we think about one  of the biggest Global incidents ever which was the   W A Cry ransomware incident back in 2017 that  impacted 300,000 Microsoft Windows devices in   150 countries so you know the proportions here are  enormous and the the kind of infrastructure points   that have been impacted by a mistake I mean  it really is a a worst case scenario in many   respects apart from the fact that this wasn't a  malicious Cyber attack and that's what you got to   worry about right tyby that perhaps this is giving  hackers some pretty nasty ideas yeah look the one   thing look the whole hacking industry is its own  real culture and on the whole a hacker won't want   to reinvent the wheel and if they see that someone  has created a a weakness or found an Avenue they   will often Pile in off the back of that and we've  seen that whether it be incidents and I don't know   if you know those watching tonight or yourselves  have ever heard of incidence like solar winds um   like the Microsoft Exchange hack that went on  but all those in is we saw that other hackers   understood what went on learned those lessons and  if you like jumped in on the back of that um to   try and exploit it this crowdstrike company  they do antivirus software there's dozens of   other options for people looking for antivirus  software but it looks like all the big Banks   airports Airlines were using just this company I  mean are we too dependent on just a small number   of powerful tech companies well I mean firstly  you know the reason they use it is because it's   incredibly good software but it is symptomatic of  um certain firms having huge market share in China   yes there were impacts of this um incident but  only really on Western firms and it's symptomatic   of the fact that China has gone through quite  a process of trying to nationalize not only   its software industry but its Hardware industry  um and its Tech Supply Chain RIT large you know   crowd strike is an American company and as we've  seen in geopolitics recently it's really been   shaping the way that technology choices are being  made in particular countries and and China that   has certainly been the case well Dr F hopefully  next time we chat to you it's not about a global   outage technology out we really appreciate your  time absolutely thank you thanks for having me