A glitch in what should have been a routine CrowdStrike technology update left thousands of travelers stranded and hospitals scrambling July 19.
CrowdStrike is a major cybersecurity organization that helps detect threats and deter hacking attempts. The glitch crashed Microsoft computers all over the world.
Earl Foote is the CEO of Nexus IT, a local IT support company. He said there’s not really anything most companies could have done to prevent the problems, but they can plan for how to respond to similar issues in the future.
“My recommendation to whatever size organization out there is to realize you have a total dependency upon technology and you have single points of failure,” he said. “You have to think about the risk and mitigate that risk through a business continuity plan.”
He recommended hiring an IT consultant and making backup plans to keep operations running if technology goes awry.
Foote said the CrowdStrike meltdown caused massive disruption to air travel in particular.
“From a major incident like this, where there are backups and delays and canceled flights for days on end, it takes an airline about a week and a half to catch up and get all of the flights back on course,” he said.
Travelers at Salt Lake City International Airport, a Delta hub, were heavily affected. Delta reported thousands of flight cancellations and delays in the days after the outage.
Delta CEO Ed Bastian said the global outage cost the airline $500 million in five days.
