Technological dependence is ubiquitous

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The recent outage involving Microsoft and Crowdstrike exposed the excessive concentration in the supply chain for technology. The outage made two things abundantly clear: first, the “big players” aren’t immune to glitches and errors, and second,  when the “big players” with vast userbases go down, the consequences are far reaching.  

Nearly all parts of our everyday activity -- working, commuting, communicating, shopping and holiday planning -- are dependent on some technology. While users are only beginning to understand the extent of this dependency, a lot of companies have been equally slow to catch up.

Many businesses don’t fully appreciate the extent to which nearly all of them are now technology companies, whether they be dairies using automation tools for food processing; a healthcare provider delivering eldercare through telehealth services; or a nursery storing information about children in their care on online portals.

This is an especially important lesson to learn for three major reasons:

  • Digitisation of businesses has intensified since the COVID-19 pandemic; many functions and services that were largely analogue before 2019 are now delivered digitally.
  • Threat actors, both state and non-state, are increasingly targeting organisations with poor or no cybersecurity to extract ransoms or sensitive data.
  • The reputational, financial and regulatory cost of poor cybersecurity are rising worldwide.

Our Chief Product Officer Megha Kumar spoke to GB News about this.