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What a day it’s been, and it’s barely lunchtime in the UK as I write this.
Naturally, as all these systems are running Windows, Microsoft has been thrust into the limelight, too.
Kevin Addley, VP Marketing & Growth at Future photographs a BSOD at JFK airport
One piece of software has crippled large parts of industry all across the planet.
That’s what worries me.
Next time we might not be.
Outages began through the night and have caused chaos into Friday morning.
Have we been lucky that nothing of this scale has happened since?
If Cloudflare goes down, so does half the internet.
This stuff is all too easy.
Bad actors can target a single source and cripple millions of computers, many of which are essential.
It points to a problem of our own making.
If my healthcare services can’t function, that’s a crisis.
Airlines unable to safely get planes on and off the ground?
Healthcare and transportation are but two essential services to keep the world moving.
Today, they’re not doing that.
That pales in comparison to what’s happening today, but I feel like it’s a good analogy.
Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Cloudflare, in this case, Crowdstrike, all have too much power.
Something like this outage puts that front and center, and honestly, it terrifies me.
It terrifies me that too few massive companies essentially hold the keys to the planet.
We’re leaving ourselves open to a whole lot of pain.
What’s the solution?
I have no idea.
At this point, I don’t even think there could be one.
These companies and their services are all too big to start making serious changes.
It’s not like the NHS will suddenly scrap Windows and build their own operating system, is it?
Convenience is king, and it can also be our undoing.
Now I need another coffee.
