Latest / Best of Business / Paul Spain: tech commentator on the wider consquences of the global CrowdStrike digital outage

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Paul Spain: tech commentator on the wider consquences of the global CrowdStrike digital outage · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from news Talk ZEDB. Follow
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  Speaker 2: On Friday, the largest IT outage in history crippled the globe.
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  Speaker 2: The issue was caused by an update to a piece
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  Speaker 2: of software run by US cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. Computers crashed,
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  Speaker 2: canceling flights, disrupting retail operations and affecting services like Saint
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  Speaker 2: John and Orkland Transport. The outage was not malicious, but
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  Speaker 2: it was so widespread that CrowdStrike saw its value tumbled
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  Speaker 2: by New Zealand twenty billion. Guerrilla Technology CEO antech commentator
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  Speaker 2: Paul Spain joins me. Now, good morning, Paul, Good morning, Francesca.
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  Speaker 2: Have we able to sort of narrow down how this occurred,
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  Speaker 2: why this occurred?
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  Speaker 3: Well, what we have is a situation with cybersecurity software
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  Speaker 3: that runs in a lot of organizations around the world
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  Speaker 3: that is always trying to close the door on the
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  Speaker 3: very latest cyber threats, and so part of the way
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  Speaker 3: they do that is when they see new information online
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  Speaker 3: and new threats, they update their software. So this is
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  Speaker 3: happening on a continuous basis for the every single day,
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  Speaker 3: multiple times a day, and what happened in this occasion
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  Speaker 3: is they've done an update to try and protect everyone,
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  Speaker 3: but the update wasn't tested well enough, it was faulty,
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  Speaker 3: and it's just taken down these millions of computers around
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  Speaker 3: the world. And unfortunately a lot of those computers that
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  Speaker 3: were taken offline by this were ones that as a
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  Speaker 3: general public we rely on for things, you know, like
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  Speaker 3: our banking, like flights and so on. So you know,
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  Speaker 3: it's had that huge widespread impact.
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  Speaker 2: Considering their updating daily, Paul, is it almost amazing this
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  Speaker 2: hasn't happened before.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, Look to some degree, you know, with a lot
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  Speaker 3: of the other updates that we that we get, and
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  Speaker 3: if you've got a smartphone or a computer, which is
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  Speaker 3: most of us, we're quite used to this cycle of
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  Speaker 3: updates coming through. But most of them there's there's enough
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  Speaker 3: time to test and they don't hit everybody at you
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  Speaker 3: at the same time. But with these particular updates, they're
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  Speaker 3: very fast. So yeah, that is probably you know, reasonably
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  Speaker 3: unusual across the different updates that we get. Is that
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  Speaker 3: particular pace, and yeah, they really drop the ball big
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  Speaker 3: time on this one.
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  Speaker 2: Is there a monopoly here that's made this issue so big.
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  Speaker 3: Look, CrowdStrike are a big and a dominant player, and
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  Speaker 3: I guess you know, one of the one of the
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  Speaker 3: lessons in here is that it's important to you know,
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  Speaker 3: to have a range of vendors that we can we
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  Speaker 3: can choose from and not having all eggs in one basket.
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  Speaker 3: And and that's you know, sometimes been a common approach
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  Speaker 3: for organized is to try and simplify and not use
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  Speaker 3: too many, too many different companies to provide the you know,
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  Speaker 3: their technology plumbing. And there's benefits to that, and there's
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  Speaker 3: risks to it. And I guess you know what we've
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  Speaker 3: seen here as as one of the risks. Could it
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  Speaker 3: have been worse, Yeah, potentially it could have been, but yeah,
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  Speaker 3: this is certainly at the at the worse end of
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  Speaker 3: the impact. And that you know, so many millions of
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  Speaker 3: computers will have needed IP technicians to get in front
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  Speaker 3: of them to fix them up. So, you know, often
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  Speaker 3: when there's some sort of software glitch that can be
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  Speaker 3: resolved with an update, that just goes out automatically and
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  Speaker 3: you've had a little bit of pain for a little
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  Speaker 3: while and then it's fixed. But in a lot of cases,
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  Speaker 3: with this one, it needs somebody sitting down, maybe you know,
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  Speaker 3: in front of a laptop, in front of a computer
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  Speaker 3: to fix it directly. Although a lot of those sort
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  Speaker 3: of systems that run the banks and run the airlines
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  Speaker 3: are able to be managed in a centralized manner, and
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  Speaker 3: so you know, you've had people sort of you know,
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  Speaker 3: working working through the night and so on over over
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  Speaker 3: the last couple of nights, you know, who have as individuals,
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  Speaker 3: have been able to work through and address this on
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  Speaker 3: very large quantities of server systems that that kind of
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  Speaker 3: you know, run these important parts of the world and
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  Speaker 3: of the Internet.
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  Speaker 2: What are the wider consequences for this for the global
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  Speaker 2: cybersecurity industry?
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  Speaker 3: Look, I think it leaves people feeling uncomfortable around around
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  Speaker 3: you know, sitting aspects of technology around cybersecurity. I imagine
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  Speaker 3: what we're going to see as some pushback from organizations
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  Speaker 3: around having updates come to them at the sort of
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  Speaker 3: pace that that they have been and and that in
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  Speaker 3: it in itself is a real balancing act because if
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  Speaker 3: the updates come to you slower, then potentially that increases
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  Speaker 3: the chance that you will get hit by a malicious
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  Speaker 3: cyber attack. So that's a it's a fine, fine balance.
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  Speaker 3: But you know, in this case, I think, you know,
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  Speaker 3: CrowdStrike really, you know, has something to answer for. And
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  Speaker 3: you know, they definitely need to make sure that they're
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  Speaker 3: doing more thorough testing before they push these updates out.
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  Speaker 3: But yeah, I think I think it leaves people feeling
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  Speaker 3: somewhat uncomfortable about relying so much on technology too.
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely, I'm going to be using this, Paul as an excuse.
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  Speaker 2: My children are always saying, you're so slow, mum. Your
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  Speaker 2: phone needs to be updated, your computer needs to be updated.
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  Speaker 2: I'm just going to sit there now, go remember CrowdStrike,
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  Speaker 2: do that.
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  Speaker 3: Brad Jes. Get the updates. They keep you safe. But
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  Speaker 3: if you want to wait extra half an hour.
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  Speaker 2: Sure, So just if you're a customer, if you're somebody
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  Speaker 2: who's been affected by this, you think you're doing the
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  Speaker 2: right thing. You've got your cybersecurity software in place. Is
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  Speaker 2: there anything else that you should be thinking about now
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  Speaker 2: going forward?
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  Speaker 3: Going?
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  Speaker 2: Okay, if this thing happened again, or I was attacked,
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  Speaker 2: what do I need to have in place? What should
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  Speaker 2: I be thinking about?
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  Speaker 3: Look, you know, I think all of us need to
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  Speaker 3: need to be upskilling and becoming aware of you know what,
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  Speaker 3: what the cyber risks and threats are and you know
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  Speaker 3: those who have whether it's a small business or a
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  Speaker 3: large business or where you know, wherever they sort of sit,
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  Speaker 3: you know it when it comes to organizationally, their organization,
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  Speaker 3: you know, should have plans of what are they going
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  Speaker 3: to do for you know, all manner of things that
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  Speaker 3: can that can go wrong, right, And we've done this
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  Speaker 3: for decades business continuity planning. What happens if the Internet
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  Speaker 3: goes down, what happens if this happens to our computers,
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  Speaker 3: what happens if we have a cyber attack. But unfortunately
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  Speaker 3: in New Zealand we have a pretty low standard when
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  Speaker 3: it comes to preparedness for cybersecurity issues, so we often
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  Speaker 3: leave ourselves actually wide open and then that broader preparedness
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  Speaker 3: for dealing with you know, the inevitable with technology risk
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  Speaker 3: that at some times things are going to go wrong,
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  Speaker 3: and so you know, this to me is it's a
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  Speaker 3: bit of a wake up call to be more prepared
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  Speaker 3: and to be more ready so that when things do
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  Speaker 3: go wrong, you know we can be on the right
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  Speaker 3: side of it.
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  Speaker 2: Paul, good to talk to you, and I promise I
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  Speaker 2: shall go home this afternoon and run on my updates.
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  Speaker 3: Thank you.
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  Speaker 2: That was Paul Spain. There Gerrilla Technology CEO and tech commentator.
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