Computer glitches this week temporarily grounded three major entities – United Airlines, the New York Stock Exchange and The Wall Street Journal.
At first, the outages were thought to be connected and possibly the result of a carefully orchestrated cyberattack. But as the day wore on, it became clear that the three failures were simply the result of big enterprise network outages that were seemingly unrelated – at least in a technical sense.
The incidents were a reminder of how vulnerable all major computer systems are and how one failure can result in hours of nonproductivity, which in turn has the potential to translate into loss of revenue and thousands of aggravated customers and users.
CNNMoney reported that based on communications with a dozen top technologists, the three failures were “highly unlikely to be the result of a coordinated cyberattack.”
United was forced to temporarily ground flights reportedly because of a problem in the way its computers communicate with each other. The NYSE had to suspend trading due to an internal “technical issue” involving its computers. WSJ.com went down because its computer servers were slow to respond, potentially as a result of increased traffic related to the NYSE outage, according to speculation.
When companies rely on massive computer systems, it is inevitable that glitches will occur, noted CNNMoney. The three outages all happened to occur on the same day and illustrated how a single error related to automated software can cause huge hiccups in a company’s operations.
“These are incredibly complicated systems. There are lots and lots of failure modes that are not thoroughly understood,” said Jeff Schmidt, CEO and founder of security consulting firm JAS Global Advisors, in a Los Angeles Times story. “Because the systems act so quickly, you have this really increased potential for cascading failures.”
For United, the glitch left thousands of its passengers grounded worldwide, which led to a number of delays throughout major airports. An estimated 3,500 flights were affected.
For an airline that is already suffering from negative customer perception, the problem was particularly unwelcome.
In May, United ranked last among six North American airlines in customer satisfaction, according to the J.D. Power 2015 North America Airline Satisfaction Study.
The nearly four-hour halt in trading on the NYSE due to the technical glitch was unprecedented. This appeared to be the first time the NYSE had come to a standstill since June 1, 2005, when trading was stopped four minutes before closing “due to a systems communications problem,” The Washington Post reported .
Photo copyright: milo827 / 123RF Stock Photo
