NCTV: ‘Societies aren’t prepared for global outages’

The National Coordinator for Counterterrorism and Security (NCTV), an institution tasked with the protection of the Netherlands against cyber threats and terrorism, says Western societies aren’t prepared for an outage like we witnessed earlier this month.

Hospitals had to postpone surgeries and other medical treatments, flights were canceled, public transportation was disrupted: CrowdStrike’s faulty update -also known as the CrowdOut- caused a lot of trouble and inconvenience around the world.

Major outages like that are exceptional. However, when things go wrong the impact and scope are immense. That’s because we live in an interconnected and digital world.

Experts say we’re not equipped to handle such disruption. This time around, airports, hospitals, public transportation and commercial companies were hit hard by the global outage. What if the next time drinking facilities go black? Or electrical companies go dark? Or the systems that make financial transactions possible go down?

Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg, Director at the NCTV, argues we all should better prepare ourselves for when a next outage of this size takes place.

“Suppose all the power goes out and it’s pitch black, what do you do? Do you have an emergency kit with candles, water, batteries and cash? Those things make you more resilient. Also, think about what you depend on and see if you’ll get into trouble if you can’t leave the house for a few days,” Aalbersberg says.

He calls the CrowdStrike update incident a ‘wake-up call’. “The threat is increasing, especially with all the conflicts of today, and attacks on digital systems are becoming more real. Last week’s outage was a wake-up call, we really need to become more resilient. That doesn’t mean we have to prevent something from happening, but above all we have to ensure that society can continue to function,” Aalbersberg stresses.

In addition, don’t forget to talk to your neighbors and see if they need any help in challenging times.

Nicole van Batenburg, spokesperson at the Red Cross, agrees with Aalbersberg. She states we should consider a global outage like an event that could occur at any moment. She points out it’s easy to prepare for such an occurrence.

“Write down phone numbers, make copies of important documents and make sure you have an emergency kit and enough potable water. For example, drinking water becomes contaminated when a flood happens,” Van Batenburg pleads.