British Airways global outage... (hacking?)

[Maksim 1,504]

So BA had to cancel all flights due to a system going down.  They blamed on a "power supply."

Correct me if I am wrong... wouldn't they entire reservations system run on more than 1u server?  And more likely racks and racks... and even if it was a "power supply"...  would take all of what, 30 mins to replace and reboot? 

Seems more like ongoing hacking than a simple hardware issue to cancel all of the days flights, globally.

https://www.rt.com/news/389922-british-airways-system-outage-passengers/

[Krdshrk 3,877]

As an IT guy - wtf 0 redundancy?  

[Maksim 1,504]

6 minutes ago, Krdshrk said:

As an IT guy - wtf 0 redundancy?  

And that's the thing.... everything on 1 PSU?  For something as critical as the one system that is running the entire airline to fail not on bad code.... but hardware? tough to imagine. 

There were comments that all of BA's IT was outsourced to India though, not sure if true or not. 

[Walt of Destiny 412]

I saw this as well. Had the same questions. My rinky-dink operation has at least three redundant systems. Like most, we have our primary systems "in the cloud" through Amazon. Which as economics would have it are admin'd from our favorite curry capital. So A LOT of companies, large and small have their stuff through them. A lot. The prices are insane compared to just paying the Microsoft/oracle multiple boxes on site.

Frankly, we've had zero issues. Even when the north east had some outages a couple of months back, we were fine. BUT the data and systems are all here in my server room with redundancies. Constantly sync' with the cloud systems. Either of us goes up in a mushroom cloud the other can run for about 3 days. So there's that.

Tinfoil hat: I think BA had credible and proven information that there were attacks to be carried out on their planes and said ground them.

Funny how the outage wasn't world wide, huh? Just in GB.




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[BobA 1,235]

I think in light of Manchester, its probably a security move.  If they said otherwise people would freak and not fly BA. 

[Zeke 5,504]

I could see both scenarios as likely. Hacking and intelligence.

Press statement smells of cover story.

[Displaced Texan 11,731]

13 minutes ago, Walt of Destiny said:

Tinfoil hat: I think BA had credible and proven information that there were attacks to be carried out on their planes and said ground them.

Funny how the outage wasn't world wide, huh? Just in GB.

I think this is the correct answer. 

[Walt of Destiny 412]

I have some friends in Nypd. They are on highest alert. Some guys that haven't been in uniform in some years are out there today and tomorrow . Holidays and vacation cancelled.

Fleet week, Memorial Day, IS trying to reassert control. DJT "winning" lots of reasons to make a stink. Be safe out there fellas. Walk near the buildings, stay away from the center masses of crowds. No condition white.


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[Zeke 5,504]

4 minutes ago, Walt of Destiny said:

I have some friends in Nypd. They are on highest alert. Some guys that haven't been in uniform in some years are out there today and tomorrow . Holidays and vacation cancelled.

Fleet week, Memorial Day, IS trying to reassert control. DJT "winning" lots of reasons to make a stink. Be safe out there fellas. Walk near the buildings, stay away from the center masses of crowds. No condition white.


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Ramadan 

[Walt of Destiny 412]

Ramadan 

 

Yup. They can't wait to meet those 72 virgins .

 

 

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[HBecwithFn7 296]

I would agree with this being more "security/terrorist" oriented than "IT/mechanical."  In any case, they aren't going to disclose the "true cause" for a variety of reasons.  They never do.  First, they don't want to make their ops (and, thus, their "vulnerabilities") known publicly. Second, if it is a security/terrorist concern, they obviously don't want to spook the public.

Finally, it's just so easy, always, to blame the IT Guys...     But yeah, allowing a hardware single point of failure for an op that huge is just plain bad management.  Either some managers need to be fired, or it wasn't the true cause.