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Published on 2024-08-13
"IT disruptions are not just about downtime; they relate to the very structure of resilience and continuity in modern businesses," says Josh Gordon, technology expert at Geonode. This summarizes the importance of IT infrastructure in today’s digital world. Since IT systems are mission-critical, failures can have far-reaching consequences for millions of users and cause significant financial and reputational damage.
Here we examine five of these high-profile IT disruptions, analyze what went wrong, and discuss the future of IT resilience.
1. The IT crisis at British Airways (2017)
In May 2017, a catastrophic IT failure grounded British Airways, stranding over 400 flights and leaving 75,000 passengers stuck. The blackout was attributed to a power surge that failed at their data center. Reuters reports show that the incident exposed an airline with no implemented recovery plan and a total lack of redundant power supplies, along with comprehensive backup systems.
Lessons learned:
2. The Equifax data breach (2017)
Although traditionally not considered an IT disruption, the 2017 Equifax data breach was one of the largest cybersecurity failures in history. It exposed personal information of 147 million people due to a vulnerability in a single web application. This was caused by inadequate patch management processes and the failure to encrypt sensitive data.
Lessons learned:
3. The Google Cloud outage (2019)
In June 2019, Google Cloud experienced a widespread outage. According to TechHQ, several services were affected, ranging from company services like Gmail and YouTube to third-party applications relying on Google Cloud. The cause was a misconfigured network. This incident highlighted how many companies rely on cloud providers.
Lessons learned:
4. The Facebook outage (2021)
On October 4, 2021, Facebook and associated services like Instagram and WhatsApp were down for nearly six hours. This was due to a configuration error in the company’s core routers, disrupting the normal flow of network traffic. Not only did it abruptly halt communications for billions of users, but the incident also exposed the vulnerabilities of centralized services.
Lessons learned:
5. The massive IT disruption (2024)
In July 2024, a massive IT disruption affected airports, businesses, and broadcasters worldwide. Ground stops were ordered by major airlines, including American, Delta, and United, all citing communication issues. The disruption was caused by a critical failure in a general-purpose network communication service. This incident disrupted travel plans for thousands of people, affected global supply chains, and caused massive operational delays across multiple industries.
Lessons learned:
Moving forward: building resilient IT systems
Looking at each of these major IT disruptions, the future of IT resilience is clear: proactive and strategic planning. "The future of IT is proactive resilience: anticipating and mitigating potential points of failure before they become a disaster," says Josh Gordon of Geonode.
Organizations need to move forward and adopt the following in terms of a multifaceted approach to IT resilience:
In doing so, businesses can continue on the path to future adaptability and ensure that their IT infrastructure is robust and reliable by focusing on these areas and learning from past incidents.
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