Analysis/Commentary

Emergency response teams were disrupted, and airlines halted, as one faulty Crowdstrike update brought the West to a screeching halt, on a Friday of all days to be disrupted. Reportedly, one single faulty update caused the “greatest IT outage in history.” 

As the Western world reeled from this IT update crash, the Far East dodged the majority of the impact. From this single incident, power dynamics are on display in a glaring illustration of the tech race and the major tech’s blind spot. With the Crowdstrike crash, the domino effect of disaster upon Big Tech’s magnitude was visible on a global scale across a wide span of industries. 

The Blind Side of Western Tech Catastrophe 

The Crowdstrike crash halted the priority of world attention spans around a single event, foregoing the fact that 2024 has already seen massive scale breaches that, while eclipsed by the Crowdstrike incident, should generate a sense of urgency in resolving disaster preparedness, analysts of cybersecurity and defense caution.   

Crowdstrike Update IT Crash: Facts at a Glance  

  • The incident began on July 19, 2024, when CrowdStrike's Falcon Sensor update caused devices to crash with a "blue screen of death" and enter a bootloop, making them unusable.
  • The outage impacted critical operations globally, including airports, banking systems, 911 emergency call centers, and healthcare services.It had been described as the greatest IT outage to ever occur in the history of computer system-based technology, as well as a “painful wakeup call.” 
  • While only less than 1% of Windows devices were affected, the economic and societal impacts were significant due to the widespread use of CrowdStrike's services in essential industries​.
  • CrowdStrike acknowledged the issue, attributing it to a logic error in the update, and recommended manual fixes involving safe mode or Windows Recovery Mode​.
  • The incident led to a significant drop in CrowdStrike's stock price and prompted investigations by law firms on behalf of investors​.
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The Dragon Comes of Age

The implications of one faulty update have, like fault lines, a rippling impact that opens cracks in other parts of the IT bedrock. Crowdstrike erred in the way of Pandora, opening political conspiracy theories and adding to anxiety about protecting artificial intelligence systems. 

These fears, tech leaders and citizens alike, have warned have been well-founded. For Crowdstrike has not acted as Pandora alone. The whole of tech has acted as Pandora, opening the box of modern invention without the scale of maintenance necessary to tame the beast. One may liken this invention to hatching a dragon’s egg, and then failing to properly feed the beast until it is of hunting age. 

The analogy of a full-grown dragon becomes startling when one realizes that China the “Dragon” to the East has, in a literal sense, also come of maturity in its tech. Sovereignty over tech systems is required to win the battle for resource dominance in the modern age. As Crowdstrike, a Texas company, has failed so openly in the agora of all modern viewership, the Dragon can be emboldened. Already, the South China Morning Post has applauded China’s domestic firms, saying the incident gives them a “chance to boast.” The Dragon is ready to spread his wings, and flaunt his many golds and reds for his hour at the lead of the parade of preeminence.

Yet, for the West, the aftermath goes beyond worries of wounded pride or damaged stocks. Returning to the analogy of the Dragon, recall that it has reached its youth and is ravenous. The eagerness of China under its shifting internal laws gives many political and tactical analysts of the Western way of life pause, as evidenced when the United Kingdom found Chinese espionage in the midst of Parliament. Dragons devour their prey in flames and ashes. China is not going to play nice with power competition, made clear already by the aggressive way the PRC competes.

If Crowdstrike’s incident includes a proverb, then it is to caution preparedness. The West, and its aligned nations, were not ready this time. If the West and democracy with it is to survive, then tech leaders are urged by circumstances to preemptively prepare for next time, analysts caution.

As cyber analysts begin to suggest adopting disaster preparedness measures for tech incidents in the same way we do earthquakes or fires, the whole of tech and industry is cautioned to heed. This is, in part, due to what has been further exposed by the advance of artificial intelligence and innovation as a whole. Tech now saturates all walks of life. There is now no preference between villager and king, when the Dragon shall choose to feed, so to speak. 

The feeding ground is the data of individuals that supply the artificial intelligence machine, a problem world security has haggled over from an A-list celebrity’s voice being used without their consent to the worries of TikTok spying. 

Eclipsing Borders and Engulfing Companies 

In recent years, the battle for AI supremacy has become a competition that engages both nations and leading tech companies, the behemoths that are larger than borders, as evidenced by OpenAI’s fight to supersede all other AI players, ZDNet writers discussed in an argument posted last year. The race for AI dominance involves significant investments and strategic maneuvers by corporations to leverage AI capabilities for competitive advantage. This shift highlights the crucial role of private sector innovation in advancing AI technologies, which impacts global power dynamics and economic strategies.

The Risk To Individual Employees 

In power competition and conflicts of yesteryear, rarely did a singular individual stand out among the whole to be targeted by the war machine, save in exceptional circumstances. Today’s power projection holds those once engaged as civilians as cyber combatants, with unorganized groups, such as the NAFO fellas, form decentralized responses to the information warfare of power struggle. 

In this paradigm shift comes a greater autonomy for individual actors and informal groups to target major competitors. The tectonic shift likewise sees the dynamic change around individual responsibility, with employees of massive organizations suddenly in the cross hairs of widespread leaks, breaches, and compromises. 

Such was observed with the recent hack of entertainment behemoth Disney, when data from Disney's internal Slack system, including ad campaigns, studio technology, and interview details, was leaked online by the hacking group NullBulge. The breach, amounting to over 1 terabyte of data, spans back to 2019 and includes computer code and information about unreleased projects. Disney is investigating the incident.

Disney Hack: Facts at a Glance

  • Hacktivist group Nullbulge breached Disney, leaking 1.1 TiB of data, as retaliation for the shutdown of Club Penguin.
  • Nullbulge used a Trojan horse malware in a BeamNG mod to access Disney's systems.
  • The breach exposed personal and corporate data, including unreleased projects and internal communications.
  • The group claims to fight against corporate malpractices like crypto promotion and AI artwork.
  • Disney is investigating the matter, and the leaked data has been removed from most public platforms.

Concerning the Private Citizen’s Data 

If ever one individual actor can still be considered a “civilian” in this modern conflict theater, then even these individuals would not be exempt from the impact of both breach and negligence. Such scenarios are highlighted by the recent breach of telecommunications giant AT&T, which impacted the individual wireless customer. 

AT&T Hack: Facts at a Glance

  • Hackers breached AT&T's systems, stealing call and text records of nearly all its customers between May 1 and October 31, 2022, as well as January 2, 2023.
  • The data stolen includes phone numbers and metadata but not the content of calls or texts.
  • AT&T worked with the FBI on the investigation.
  • The breach held significant implications for individual user privacy and system security, adding to the mix of anguish over recent massive technological disruptions. 

Power of the Little People 

The AT&T hack consequences have included a class action lawsuit against the company that demands customer competition, as the gap between the mammoth tech entity and the “little people” user lessens. The lawsuit, which Bloomberg reported was filed by Dina Winger in a Texas district court, demands AT&T pay damages for exposed customer information. 

The empowerment of the so-called little people all the way up to leadership comes at the opportune time, as, power competition analysts have warned that the West is now in the race of its life in competing for power projection. The United States Space Force has described this as being a whole of society effort, an impetus that has driven the Space Force, and other branches of the U.S. military to advance public-private partnerships incorporating the assets of tech companies into the defender's fold, and thereby ceiling the arms race of today as emerging technology driven.

Contenders of a New Arms Race

In the aforesaid emerging tech arms race, there is no contender matching the Western power race to the degree of China. China focuses on three strategic technologies—space, artificial intelligence (AI), and quantum computing and communication—as part of its plan to become a global power by 2049. The country has made significant advancements in these areas, aiming to establish a permanent Moon base, lead in AI development, and achieve unhackable communications through quantum technology. This strategic focus is part of China's broader goal of national rejuvenation and competing with the United States for technological supremacy.

The Crowdstrike incident holds particular embarrassment on the world power stage when stacked against China as a Western rival because China largely escaped the global disruption caused by the CrowdStrike update. This is reportedly due to China's limited use of CrowdStrike and its reliance on domestic tech companies like Alibaba, Tencent, and Huawei instead of Microsoft. Reports of outages in China were mostly confined to foreign businesses. China's strategy of replacing foreign IT systems with domestic alternatives, a concept known as the "splinternet," has helped insulate its essential services from global tech disruptions. This approach is part of Beijing's broader goal to bolster national security by reducing dependence on foreign technology.

To whet the edge of its competitive blade, Beijing has pushed the advance of nation state actors to sabotage Western competitor systems, further complicating the stakes of the race.Power competition and projection have thus taken repeated hits from high profile hacks, as China continues to reply with enduring breach tactics of its own. For example, earlier this year, Chinese nation-state hackers, identified as "Volt Typhoon," infiltrated U.S. critical infrastructure networks for up to five years, positioning themselves for potential disruptive or destructive cyberattacks in case of a major crisis or conflict with the U.S., according to a joint alert from CISA, NSA, and FBI. Exposure of this long entrenchment into high-profile U.S. systems clashes with the crippling blow repeated major hacks brings to the image of the U.S. as a leader of Western technological advancement. 

The impact of nation state contenders as the echo of Crowdstrike's resounding crash reverberate from the concept of an arms race to the physical reality of control-center powered arms. Infiltration by nation-states and crashes like the Crowdstrike incident present unique challenges to operators of unmanned craft, which the Center for European Policy Analysis has described as vital to defense in Ukraine, for example, and has urged NATO to adapt to. Western fighters adapt to the growing importance of drones in combat, with "fusion centers" and other strategy around both drone and counter-drone tactics. In Ukraine, where resources for national defense have dipped to dire circumstances at times, the fighters have relied on less sophistication opting for "toy drones." A reported favorite drone is the one manufactured by DJI. DJI control hubs have partnered with Microsoft to work toward advanced capabilities. The sudden upset of Microsoft for users of these drones are cause for confusion in Ukraine's trenches.

Such a disruption signals

for the future of unmanned technology, and how ground control of emerging tech combat readiness can clip on without such massive disruptions whenever need would arise.

A Blue Screen of Death Around the Supreme Hive Mind 

As Frontsight contributor David Kirichenko reported in a June update from the Ukraine conflict, Western powers and pro-democratic states now vie with the far East for supremacy over the AI-controlled combat “hive mind.” As artificial intelligence syncs with unmanned vehicles, warfare as a whole whets the blade of cutting edge technology for metamorphosis. In some ways, the evolution of battlefields, such as a forecast of Taiwan, have even potentially changed due to the introduction of unmanned craft in predictive conflict scenarios. 

The Crowdstrike crash, however, wraps a hazy blue screen of death around that supreme hive mind, casting a shadow of doubt over AI’s essential data control centers. It creates a sense of pause and dread in a wide sweep because drone systems are used in diverse ways across critical infrastructure, paired with AI, and edge computing such as Amazon Web Services produces, to do everything from inspect buildings to film movies. 

In the sense of tactical systems, the Department of Defense is assessing the impact of the Crowdstrike failure. The DoD is working with CrowdStrike and Microsoft to mitigate the effects and ensure the security and functionality of their networks.

The Tectonic Shift of a New Society 

Crowdstrike’s great failure has been described as "just and outage" and a warning that such failures are potentially inevitable, while Crowdstrike itself does not bear the singular blame, commentators argue. The great IT crash was an event driven by the push play rush of a changing society. While glaring in its whole, the Crowdstrike crash rattled the earth enough for Humanity standing on it to realize at once that the tectonic plates have shifted. 

The boundaries of our entire understanding of human geography have shifted along with this event. Nations saw at once what a tiny skip in the wheel of the great machine could cause to known civilization. Other breaches, which took years to form, are reminiscent of the cooling of magma on ocean floors, the shaping of new continents around the strike of human genius. 

Just as volcanoes erupt to form islands, so tech has erupted and shifted soils to form new continents, islands in the cloud that recognize no person separate in class. From monarch to peasant, this shifting of the virtual earth has alerted humanity that the Great Tech Cataclysm has precluded the end of reality as humanity understood it for the Millennial before the earthquake happened.