How it came about

Expert on IT chaos: “Worldwide chain reaction”

Dr. Cornelius Granig advises numerous companies on cyber security.

(Bild: Antal Imre)

Following the global blackout, Krone cyber expert Dr. Cornelius Granig criticizes the fact that too many decision-makers in companies are still relying on the principle of hope when it comes to security. State attackers are also working specifically to paralyze our society. 

"Krone": Mr. Granig, it feels like half the world is affected by computer failures. Were we not prepared for this? 
Dr. Cornelius Granig: The more we digitalize our economy and society, the more dependent we become on the continuous functioning of information and communication technologies. We therefore always need to think about how we can prevent IT from ceasing to function. And also how to operate in an emergency in the event of a partial or total failure. The dominance of American providers means that a failure of the basic Internet infrastructure in the USA or cyberattacks on large companies such as Microsoft, Google, Meta and Amazon, which are all based there, will affect us immediately and lead to a digital blackout.

An update from the cybersecurity company "Crowdstrike" went wrong and nothing worked at numerous airports around the world.

(Bild: AFP)

How credible is the argument that an update led to the blackout? 
That seems quite possible to me, as errors can always occur even with large suppliers of security systems. However, if these occur worldwide at the same time, there is also a worldwide chain reaction, at the end of which many systems in many countries no longer work. This is always possible. 

Decision-makers often point to the costliness of such failure scenarios and simply hope that nothing major will happen.

„Krone“-Cyberexperte Dr. Cornelius Granig

Airports, hospitals and TV stations are affected. How can critical infrastructure be effectively protected? 
Companies and organizations that are part of the "critical infrastructure", which we cannot possibly do without in our daily lives, must take precautions to ensure that replacement systems are up and running in the event of an incident like the one that happened today. For example, it is possible to have several providers for the security of end devices and to switch to another provider in the event of one of them failing. This again shows how important the legal basis is for such institutions to develop an end-to-end "information security management system" (ISMS) and a reliable resilience strategy. It is also necessary to be able to carry out very important processes without IT for a short time in the event of blackouts and major crises.

The system disruption also affected Vienna Airport in Schwechat.

(Bild: zVg)

But why is it that many companies have not yet done this? 
Unfortunately, this planning is lacking in many areas. Decision-makers often point to the costliness of such failure scenarios and simply hope that nothing major will happen. In our parliament, the NIS2 Act, which was intended to regulate these issues nationally in Austria on the basis of an EU directive, regrettably failed two weeks ago. This is despite the fact that today's incidents make it clear to any layperson that concepts for the operational security of critical systems are very important for the functioning of our society.

Many a state hacker group will be rubbing their hands in glee ...
Many dangerous state attackers from Russia, Iran, China and North Korea are working to paralyze our society in order to disrupt social peace. The Russian dictator Putin would like to return to the digital Stone Age and is shutting down more and more internet services for his citizens. In North Korea, these have always been unavailable, as the criminal regime does not want its citizens to see the positive reality of life in the West. Therefore, these problematic actors also have an interest in causing large-scale disruption or committing criminal acts in the shadow of these failures.