What happens if your computer or cell phone suddenly stops working?
That was the question the world faced again Friday amid a widespread technology outage that crippled airlines, hospitals, banks and other businesses and caused chaos around the world, all blamed on a botched software update by an unnamed technology vendor. (Earlier this year, mobile phones suddenly stopped working across the U.S., causing widespread disruption.)
The experts have the answers – however unsatisfying they may be.
Get used to technical glitches. More serious problems are looming. There are a few things you can do to prepare.
“I think this is a sign,” said Avi Rubin, a cybersecurity expert and professor emeritus at Johns Hopkins University. “It’s definitely going to happen again. The systems we use are vulnerable to this.”
Our lives are heavily dependent on technology and the internet.
How can one failure cause such disruption? If an operating system is widely used in systems around the world, it can affect virtually every industry.
The glitch caused computer screens across a range of industries to display the dreaded “blue screen” — a glitch that appears on Windows systems when there’s a serious problem and that usually requires a skilled technician to fix, Rubin said. The screen was seen at airports, transportation centers and even Disneyland in France.
In some locations, grocery store cash register computers flashed blue, disrupting everyday shopping. Rubin said another real-world impact of the glitch was on hospitals, where many hospitals canceled non-emergency procedures. Hospitals rely on electronic systems to distribute medicines and other supplies and manage inventory. Without the systems working, hospitals cannot function optimally. In extreme situations, someone could die, Rubin said.
Rubin said many industries have done away with redundancy and backups in case their main operating system goes down. “I’ve talked to hospital administrators and they tell me there’s no way they can function without the internet anymore.”
“This is a deeply disturbing demonstration of the vulnerability of the world’s core internet infrastructure,” Ciarán Martin, a professor at Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government and former director of the UK National Cyber Security Centre, told Reuters.
Mobile phone and network issues may continue to occur
CrowdStrike said Friday’s outage was not the result of a cyberattack, but digital security experts say the United States is vulnerable to cyberattacks.
“When I first heard about this, my first thought was, ‘Oh my goodness, if this can happen from a random software bug, imagine the consequences of a well-thought-out, well-funded attack,'” Rubin says. “Our systems cannot even tolerate random software errors.”
Cyber attacks have already affected water utilities and car dealerships across the country this year.
Communications outages are the rule, not the exception, Alyssa Provencio, a professor at the University of Central Oklahoma, told USA Today during the AT&T outage earlier this year. Provencio, who oversees the school’s disaster management certificate program, said communications outages often happen after natural disasters like wildfires or hurricanes, and that in extreme cases, outages can last for days, weeks or even months.
Last summer, devastating wildfires ripped through the Hawaiian island of Maui, killing more than 100 people, causing widespread confusion as mobile phone signals were cut off and people didn’t know what to do.
How can you prepare for a disaster that causes a power outage?
As we rely heavily on technology to form part of our daily lives, it’s important to have a back-up plan.
Experts suggest these tips for surviving outages caused by glitches, natural disasters, or even cyber attacks:
Cash. It’s a good idea to have some cash on hand in case mobile payments don’t work or ATMs are down, James Kendra, co-director of the University of Delaware’s Disaster Research Center, told USA Today. Paper copies of important documents. “One thing I stress to everyone is to have paper copies of all your important documents,” he said. That means printing out your bank statements so you have all your account numbers, printing out your insurance statements, phone bills, mortgage and rental contracts, and having the numbers you would normally get online on hand. Landline. If your cellular network is down and you don’t have a landline, you may be able to use your cell phone to send SMS text messages or use Wi-Fi to send messages and make calls. Radio. This is a good thing to have on hand at all times to receive emergency updates, Provencio said, but you likely have one in your car if you don’t have one at home. Other equipment. Learn more about packing your evacuation bag and gathering evacuation supplies here.
It’s not necessarily possible to prepare for a global outage like the one that happened Friday, but people can lobby their elected representatives for more secure systems, Rubin said. They can also avoid falling prey to smaller-scale attacks by avoiding clicking on suspicious links or opening files sent by people they don’t know, he said.
He said there’s a way for businesses to better protect themselves against disruptions from power outages or cyberattacks: By not relying on a single operating system to perform critical functions, if one system — in this case Windows — experiences problems, they can switch to a computer running Mac or Linux.
“Sometimes, you have a serious, but not catastrophic, incident that may make you realize your company’s vulnerabilities and cause you to put in more effort to better secure your systems,” Rubin said.
Contributing writer: Elizabeth Wise, USA Today, Reuters
