1 00:00:01,200 --> 00:00:03,033 AMNA NAWAZ: Welcome to the "News Hour." 2 00:00:03,033 --> 00:00:06,433 The pressure is mounting on President Biden to step aside from his campaign 3 00:00:06,433 --> 00:00:09,500 a day after the Republican National Convention wrapped 4 00:00:09,500 --> 00:00:13,700 up with a highly anticipated speech from former President Donald Trump. 5 00:00:13,700 --> 00:00:16,833 GEOFF BENNETT: We will have more on the shifting political landscape in a moment. 6 00:00:16,833 --> 00:00:21,233 But we start tonight with a tech outage around the world that halted flights, 7 00:00:21,233 --> 00:00:25,366 disrupted emergency services, and created headaches for businesses. 8 00:00:25,366 --> 00:00:29,233 AMNA NAWAZ: The underlying problems behind the glitch were fixed by the afternoon, 9 00:00:29,233 --> 00:00:33,800 but the ripple effects have lasted throughout the day and may continue well into tomorrow. 10 00:00:33,800 --> 00:00:35,800 GEOFF BENNETT: And, as William Brangham reports, 11 00:00:35,800 --> 00:00:40,500 thousands of passengers are still trying to get to their destinations tonight. 12 00:00:42,766 --> 00:00:45,700 WILLIAM BRANGHAM: It was the glitch felt around the world. Today's software failure triggered 13 00:00:45,700 --> 00:00:50,666 far-reaching and frustrating outages globally. Air travelers were among the most directly affected, 14 00:00:52,433 --> 00:00:56,333 with tens of thousands of flights delayed and thousands more canceled. 15 00:00:56,333 --> 00:00:58,533 BECCA MAYNARD, Stranded Passenger: I have never seen it like this before, 16 00:00:58,533 --> 00:01:02,633 especially in this airport. This airport is my favorite because it's usually getting it out. 17 00:01:02,633 --> 00:01:05,633 WILLIAM BRANGHAM: The outage was caused by a faulty software update 18 00:01:05,633 --> 00:01:10,400 within Microsoft's Windows operating system. Many users first noticed the 19 00:01:10,400 --> 00:01:15,033 problem when they saw the notorious so-called blue screen of death. 20 00:01:15,033 --> 00:01:19,000 The faulty update was issued by the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. 21 00:01:19,000 --> 00:01:23,200 CEO George Kurtz offered a mea culpa this morning on "The Today Show." 22 00:01:23,200 --> 00:01:25,700 GEORGE KURTZ, CEO and Founder, CrowdStrike: We're deeply sorry for the impact that we 23 00:01:25,700 --> 00:01:30,700 have caused to customers, to travelers, to anyone affected by this, including our 24 00:01:32,833 --> 00:01:35,733 companies. So we know what the issue is. We're resolving and have resolved the issue now. 25 00:01:37,433 --> 00:01:40,066 WILLIAM BRANGHAM: The FAA temporarily grounded major U.S. airlines, 26 00:01:40,066 --> 00:01:43,033 including United, American, and Delta. 27 00:01:43,033 --> 00:01:46,966 WOMAN: Please wait on the passenger load. We aren't checking right now. 28 00:01:46,966 --> 00:01:50,666 WILLIAM BRANGHAM: With flights stalled, check-ins were brought to a standstill. 29 00:01:50,666 --> 00:01:54,666 This passenger in Minneapolis was disappointed with his airline's response. 30 00:01:54,666 --> 00:01:57,700 MATT JORDAN, Stranded Passenger: What's interesting to watch is that airlines have 31 00:01:57,700 --> 00:02:02,666 no idea what's happening because it is such an issue that they don't have a grasp on yet, 32 00:02:03,866 --> 00:02:06,033 at least here at the Minneapolis Airport. 33 00:02:06,033 --> 00:02:09,433 WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Across the world, in Australia, travelers had to fend for themselves. 34 00:02:09,433 --> 00:02:12,000 CHRISTINE POULTON, Stranded Passenger: Our flight's been canceled, so now we're trying 35 00:02:12,000 --> 00:02:17,000 to find accommodation in Sydney, which is not easy. Our daughters are trying to do that online. 36 00:02:19,100 --> 00:02:23,333 And then we will have to try and get a flight home somehow, somewhere, sometime. Don't know. 37 00:02:24,566 --> 00:02:26,400 WILLIAM BRANGHAM: It wasn't just air travel 38 00:02:26,400 --> 00:02:29,933 that was affected. Hospitals and health care systems overseas were 39 00:02:29,933 --> 00:02:34,933 also locked up, forcing the cancellation of appointments and the closing of clinics. 40 00:02:36,300 --> 00:02:38,433 Massachusetts General Hospital had to limit operations, 41 00:02:38,433 --> 00:02:43,033 announcing -- quote -- "Due to the severity of this issue, all previously scheduled, 42 00:02:43,033 --> 00:02:47,733 non-urgent surgeries, procedures, and medical visits are canceled today." 43 00:02:47,733 --> 00:02:52,700 The outage also impacted 911 call systems in many places, in emergency services in Oregon, Alaska, 44 00:02:54,966 --> 00:02:59,933 and Arizona. Global news outlets like Sky News were unable to broadcast their regular programs. 45 00:03:01,500 --> 00:03:05,800 WOMAN: And a major global I.T. outage is impacting many of 46 00:03:05,800 --> 00:03:10,100 the world's largest companies, including us here at Sky News. 47 00:03:10,100 --> 00:03:14,700 WILLIAM BRANGHAM: In Paris, Olympic officials say some of their systems were also down. 48 00:03:14,700 --> 00:03:19,700 In many places, courts were also closed or delayed. While the underlying software problem 49 00:03:23,733 --> 00:03:28,733 has been fixed, security experts say residual problems could continue for several days. 50 00:03:30,866 --> 00:03:35,400 So, to help us understand more about what went wrong and the broader risks to our system, 51 00:03:37,300 --> 00:03:40,100 we turn again to Bruce Schneier. He's an expert in computer security and technology, 52 00:03:40,100 --> 00:03:45,100 a lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School, and writes the wonderful blog Schneier on Security. 53 00:03:46,500 --> 00:03:48,266 Bruce Schneier, thanks so much for being here again. 54 00:03:48,266 --> 00:03:51,866 Help us understand the basics here. What is it that went wrong? 55 00:03:51,866 --> 00:03:54,666 BRUCE SCHNEIER, Harvard University: You know, basically there are hundreds of 56 00:03:54,666 --> 00:03:59,633 companies that do small things that are critical to the Internet functioning. 57 00:04:01,800 --> 00:04:04,200 And, today, one of them failed, this company you have probably never heard of and wouldn't 58 00:04:04,200 --> 00:04:09,000 hear of if it didn't fail. It's one of many. I mean, the details are geeky, 59 00:04:09,000 --> 00:04:13,700 but basically one of the critical things that holds the Internet up fell down. 60 00:04:13,700 --> 00:04:18,700 WILLIAM BRANGHAM: OK, but that simple little glitch today grounded planes, stopped surgeries 61 00:04:20,833 --> 00:04:24,833 from happening, had 911 systems go down. I mean, if that can be happening because of an accident, 62 00:04:27,533 --> 00:04:32,533 I mean, what would happen if there was a motivated bad actor getting into these systems? 63 00:04:32,533 --> 00:04:35,033 BRUCE SCHNEIER: We see that. Do you remember Change Healthcare, 64 00:04:35,033 --> 00:04:37,600 when no one got prescriptions because of ransomware? 65 00:04:37,600 --> 00:04:40,733 Remember Colonial Pipeline,where oil stopped flowing in the East 66 00:04:40,733 --> 00:04:45,733 Coast because of ransomware? We see this again and again. Sometimes, it's malice, 67 00:04:47,666 --> 00:04:50,933 sometimes it's accident, but there are so many critical things that make this 68 00:04:52,600 --> 00:04:56,833 network function. And if any one of them fails, the network fails. 69 00:04:59,133 --> 00:05:02,000 WILLIAM BRANGHAM: So is it just that we are too overreliant on a concentrated number of companies? 70 00:05:04,066 --> 00:05:08,200 BRUCE SCHNEIER: Yes, it's concentrated and the fact that there's no -- no resilience, 71 00:05:10,266 --> 00:05:15,133 that it's a very fragile system. And a lot of that is the way -- is the economics, right? 72 00:05:17,366 --> 00:05:20,600 Redundancies are viewed as inefficient, so they're pulled out of the system because of profits, 73 00:05:22,766 --> 00:05:26,033 but that ends up with a very fragile system. It all works great when it works. When it fails, 74 00:05:26,033 --> 00:05:28,733 it fails catastrophically, which is what we saw today. 75 00:05:28,733 --> 00:05:32,300 WILLIAM BRANGHAM: So is that the incentive here? Is that to change -- to make a 76 00:05:32,300 --> 00:05:37,300 meaningful incentive, to sort of build in that redundancy? Is it economics principally? 77 00:05:38,166 --> 00:05:40,566 BRUCE SCHNEIER: It's economics. 78 00:05:40,566 --> 00:05:43,666 We have the technology here. I could describe ways that CrowdStrike could have rolled out this 79 00:05:45,633 --> 00:05:49,200 change incrementally and caught this before it was a disaster. We can talk about maybe 80 00:05:49,200 --> 00:05:54,100 there being a dozen companies do the same thing, so that the disaster is contained. 81 00:05:54,100 --> 00:05:59,100 But, really, it is fundamentally economics. The business incentive is to grow and become critical 82 00:06:00,366 --> 00:06:02,433 and then run as lean as absolutely possible. 83 00:06:02,433 --> 00:06:04,533 WILLIAM BRANGHAM: So what do you think the downstream consequences 84 00:06:04,533 --> 00:06:09,000 for CrowdStrike and/or Microsoft will be? Or will there be none? 85 00:06:09,000 --> 00:06:12,733 BRUCE SCHNEIER: There will be none. What were the downstream consequences for Colonial Pipeline or 86 00:06:12,733 --> 00:06:17,733 Change Healthcare or the dozens of other incidents like this in the past few years? 87 00:06:19,000 --> 00:06:21,333 We move on, right? Politics is all-consuming. 88 00:06:21,333 --> 00:06:25,166 This is a blip. Tomorrow, I don't even think it's going to be news. 89 00:06:25,166 --> 00:06:28,800 WILLIAM BRANGHAM: On a practical basis, for an individual who late 90 00:06:28,800 --> 00:06:33,800 last night or today might have done some online transaction, paid a bill, 91 00:06:35,833 --> 00:06:38,500 transferred money, do they need to worry? Could this have impacted them in some way? 92 00:06:38,500 --> 00:06:40,666 BRUCE SCHNEIER: I mean, they could have if they were flying today, 93 00:06:40,666 --> 00:06:45,666 if they wanted to needed 911 services, hospitals. A lot of things collapsed. But, 94 00:06:47,100 --> 00:06:49,433 really, as an individual, there's nothing you can do. 95 00:06:49,433 --> 00:06:53,666 You're not in charge of these networks. You don't get to say what products and services are used 96 00:06:55,733 --> 00:06:58,900 or not. We are all at the mercy of these very large consolidated systems. And when they fail, 97 00:07:01,700 --> 00:07:06,333 our life is impacted. The only way to make this change is at the political level, right? 98 00:07:06,333 --> 00:07:11,333 Agitate for some meaningful rules here that will keep companies from being this lean. 99 00:07:14,600 --> 00:07:17,900 WILLIAM BRANGHAM: But you know the difficulties of that kind of a thing. One, that's not a 100 00:07:17,900 --> 00:07:22,700 constituency that's naturally out there that's organically fighting for this kind of a thing. 101 00:07:22,700 --> 00:07:26,500 Absent that, are there political leaders that could be doing this, 102 00:07:26,500 --> 00:07:29,033 that could be pressing this in a regulatory way? 103 00:07:29,033 --> 00:07:32,866 BRUCE SCHNEIER: I mean, there can. I don't think there will be. We have a lot of trouble, 104 00:07:32,866 --> 00:07:37,633 especially the United States, regulating anything. And this is certainly not the worst disaster. 105 00:07:37,633 --> 00:07:41,533 This is just one of many. This is today's disaster. So, yes, 106 00:07:41,533 --> 00:07:46,233 there could be change. I wouldn't expect it. E.U. is doing better. You see more 107 00:07:46,233 --> 00:07:51,233 meaningful regulation there. But even there, they're not doing the kind of things that will 108 00:07:52,700 --> 00:07:56,500 make our critical infrastructure more redundant, more resilient. 109 00:07:56,500 --> 00:07:58,600 WILLIAM BRANGHAM: All right, Bruce Schneier of Schneier on Security, 110 00:07:58,600 --> 00:08:00,233 thanks so much for being here. 111 00:08:00,233 --> 00:08:02,700 BRUCE SCHNEIER: Yes, thanks for having me. Glad we're on.