Our modern world is underpinned by a vast, interconnected web of technology most of us never see. This hidden system, described by experts as a 'cyber-energy-production plexus', is so integral to daily life that its failure could bring society to a standstill.
The Invisible Backbone of Modern Life
In 1951, designer Raymond Loewy illustrated how the 'average guy' was surrounded by designed products. Today, that saturation is digital. We are woken by smartphone alarms, use internet-connected heating, receive tracked deliveries, and manage finances online. This reliance forms a complex plexus—an interwoven system of telecommunications, energy, and service networks that must function every second of the day.
The fragility of this system was starkly revealed on 19 July 2024. A faulty software update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike triggered a global outage, a minor 'digital pandemic' that halted industries worldwide. It was a wake-up call, demonstrating how a single point of failure in this plexus can have cascading consequences.
The Unknown Titans of the Web
While giants like Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Meta are familiar, over 1,000 other critical companies operate largely in the shadows. Their disruption can cripple the internet's core functions.
Companies like Cloudflare provide essential cloud security and domain services; any problem here causes widespread internet access issues. Lumen Technologies operates one of roughly 14 global tier-one networks—the internet's motorways. Disrupting these would fragment the global web into isolated regional networks.
The financial world hinges on Swift, which facilitates cross-border payments for over 11,000 institutions. An outage could spark global payment chaos. Telecommunications providers like Verizon, Rogers, and BT have caused localised blackouts, such as Rogers' 2022 update that knocked out Canada's debit systems and emergency calls for a day.
Vulnerabilities and the Need for Contingency
This critical infrastructure extends to 1.5 million kilometres of submarine cables and satellites, vulnerable to natural disasters or targeted attacks. The plexus has a symbiotic relationship with energy grids: a power failure can disable it, and its failure can trigger power issues.
Risks are manifold: human error (as with CrowdStrike), equipment failure, bad weather, and cyberattacks like malware or border gateway protocol hijacking. Tier-one cables are critical global infrastructure that could be damaged or targeted.
Professor John Bryson of the University of Birmingham warns that most people, companies, and governments are unprepared. Prolonged failure could make everyday living exceedingly difficult, potentially leading to looting if security systems fail. In severe cases, like internet outages disrupting emergency food supplies in Sudan, it can even cost lives.
The evolution of this cyber-energy-production plexus delivers undeniable advantages, but it also brings a host of known and unknown risks. The key lesson from the CrowdStrike incident is the urgent need for robust contingency plans to withstand the inevitable next outage.
