Federal Government Information Technology

Today's Interconnected Systems Magnify Simple Human Errors at Frightening Speed And Scale

Nextgov: A glitch in after-hours trading July 3 caused some Nasdaq-listed prices to go haywire: Some stocks jumped more than 3,000 percent, with Microsoft very briefly worth nearly $1 trillion. The episode highlights how today’s complex, interconnected digital systems can magnify seemingly small mistakes, impacting people around the world.

Take British Airways, which stranded 75,000 people last month after a contractor reportedly switched off a power supply by accident, knocking out the company’s computer systems. Or the Bank of the Philippines Islands earlier this year. A data processing error affected some 1.5 million clients, which some initially suspected was the work of cyber criminals. The reality was much more mundane: A specialist was blamed for entering the wrong file in a system.

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