The case

The most recent breakdown has shown how vulnerable our world has become.

Source: NZZ am Sonntag 21.07.2024 – Markus Städeli

The commentary

On Friday, a computer glitch paralysed banks, hospitals and television stations as well as air controll systems around the world. Passengers at Zurich Airport were also affected as their flights had to be cancelled. The pressing question now is: Who is to be held responsible for the chaos caused? For once, the most recent breakdown could not be blamed on a cyber attack, but was caused by a software update of Crowdstrike, an established cyber security company.

The shocking incident has shown to all of us how vulnerable the world has become to disruption, as we have become so dependent on the IT systems run by but a few large providers. Crowdstrike is said to have a market share of 18 % in its field of business; its lapse caused a bug in the even more dominant Windows operating system, which, as proven last week, is the weak spot of market giants such as Amazon, Google and Microsoft. It is hard to imagine what would happen if their cloud services were to collapse – the lights might go out globally. In the light of the pandemic, it is vital that politicians have started to address the risks of global supply chains for goods, though they should also keep an eye on the increasing concentration and interdependencies among IT providers, as they are more likely to have a bigger and more immediate impact on all of us.

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