Six days later and some CSRA travelers are still reeling from a global computer outage that began Friday morning, July 19. On that day, Augusta Regional Airport (AGS) announced delays from American Airlines and cancellations for Delta flights.
At issue was the fact that Atlanta is the Delta hub. With the exception of AGS direct flights to Charlotte, Dallas, and Washington, DC, the bulk of Augusta flights, with Delta as the carrier, land in Atlanta and depart to cities across the country and around the world.
Tabitha Butler, owner of Tab’s Professional Transportation based in Aiken, rolled into action when her company began to get frantic calls from business folks and others trying to get back home.
“Between Friday afternoon and late Monday night, I made seven trips back and forth to the ATL to pick up stranded travelers who needed to get back to Augusta or Aiken. I just wanted to make myself available because I felt their frustration,” explained Butler.
She described the past few days as a crisis and wanted to help people even while recognizing the third anniversary of her company. Butler said she got ‘thank you’ hugs because travelers were so grateful to get back home.
“There were no rental cars available because thousands of people were in the same boat. Uber trips from the ATL to Augusta and Aiken were running between $800 and $1000. So, my company was able to celebrate three years in business by helping others.”
To better understand the how and why behind the cyber catastrophe, ABD turned to a frequent contributor and cyber expert, Patrick Reynolds, CEO of Cross Link Consulting.
“Think of it as an antivirus update gone sideways. We used to see these every couple of years, where a Symantec or McAfee definition update crippled systems or made them run very poorly. Antivirus has been replaced with a more comprehensive solution referred to as EDR (Endpoint Detection and Response). The events of last week stem from an EDR update from a specific vendor, CrowdStrike, affecting Microsoft Windows. The repair requires IT folks to boot into safe mode and delete the EDR update,” Reynolds explained.
It’s been a monumental task for Delta with thousands of computer sites affecting every part of the airline’s systems resulting in more than 6,500 cancellations and thousands of delays. As of today, those have slowed considerably. Could it happen again? Not likely very soon, says Reynolds.
“If history is any indicator of the future, patches and definition updates necessary for security fixes will continue to result in occasional problems. The good news is that they are rare, and they can be contained if organizations take steps to diversify their security measures. Also, security measures always add some amount of risk—to legitimate access and also to productivity. Adding a door lock to your house means you might accidentally get locked out, and there will be a delay as you hunt for your keys to unlock the door. We understand this in other parts of our lives, and must come to appreciate it in our digital lives.”
Today, most of the departures from AGS are departing and arriving on time, as are departures and arrivals at the Atlanta Airport. Reynolds offered some advice for any business faced with IT security updates.
“Ensure IT is deploying security updates to batches of devices and not to everyone all at once. Backups should also be able to be recovered quickly and must be tested regularly. With the bug from CrowdStrike, companies might look closely at whether disk encryption is needed before implementing it just to check a box. Finally, for enterprise fleets, organizations might consider diversifying security solutions so that a breaking patch doesn’t break all critical systems.”
The ongoing issues at Delta have prompted a Department of Transportation investigation announced Tuesday by Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
Editor’s Note:
Mitzi Oxford is a veteran broadcaster and features writer who also worked at the same television station in Columbus, Georgia as Augusta’s Brad Means! If you have a South Carolina story idea for Mitzi, please email her at mitzioxfordcreative@gmail.com.
