New research argues that 66% of UK consumers think software companies who release “bad” code that causes mass outages should be punished. Many agree that doing so is on par with, or worse than, supermarkets selling contaminated food.
The study of 2,000 UK consumers was commissioned by Harness and conducted by Opinium Research. The report found that almost half (44%) of UK consumers have been affected by an IT outage.
IT outages becoming a fact of life
Over a quarter (26%) were impacted by the recent incident caused by a software update from CrowdStrike in July 2024. Those affected by those outages said they experienced a wide array of issues. These included being unable to access a website or app (34%) or online banking (25%). Others reported having trains and flights delayed or cancelled (24%), as well as difficulty making healthcare appointments.
“As software has come to play such a central role in our daily lives, the industry needs to recognise the importance of being able to deliver innovation without causing mass disruption. That means getting the basics right every time and becoming more rigorous when applying modern software delivery practices,” said Jyoti Bansal, founder and CEO at Harness. Bansal added that simple precautions could drastically reduce the impact of outages like the one that affected CrowdStrike. Canary deployments, for example, could mitigate the impact of an outage by ensuring updates only reach a few devices. This would have helped identify and mitigate issues early, he added, “before they snowballed into a global IT meltdown.”
Following the recent disruption, 41% of consumers say they are less trusting of companies that have IT outages. More than a third (34%) have changed their behaviour because of outages. Almost 20% now ensure they have cash available. Others keep more physical documents (15%). And just over 10% are hedging their bets with a wider range of suppliers. For example, using multiple banks can avoid being impacted by outages.
Consumers favour regulation for IT infrastructure and software
In the wake of the July mass-outages, 74% of consumers say they favour the introduction of new regulations. These regulations would ensure companies are held accountable for delivering “bad” or poor-quality software updates that lead to IT outages.
Many consumers go further. Over half (52%) claim software firms that put out bad updates should compensate affected companies (52%). Some believe the offenders should be fined by the government (37%). Almost one-in-five (18%) consumers say they should be suspended from trading.
“With consumers crying out for change, there needs to be a dialogue about the controls that can be implemented to limit the risk of technology failures impacting society,” Bansal added. “Just as they do for the banking and healthcare industries, or in cybersecurity, regulators should consider mandating minimum standards for the quality and resilience of the software that is ubiquitous across the globe. To get ahead of such measures, software providers should implement modern delivery mechanisms that enable them to continuously improve the quality of their code and drive more stable release cycles. This will allow the industry to get on the front foot and relegate major global IT outages to the past.”
- Cybersecurity
- Infrastructure & Cloud
