Global IT Outage

Lord Harris of Haringey Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2024 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the recent global IT outage.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, in begging leave to ask the Question standing in my name, I refer to my interests as an adviser to Performanta and as chair of the National Preparedness Commission.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Twycross) (Lab)]

The CrowdStrike software update caused an IT outage affecting millions of devices around the world. In the UK, while government emergency and security systems remained operational, our retail, transport and healthcare sectors were disrupted. I have huge sympathy for all those affected. COBRA officials’ meetings were convened and officials from across government and the devolved Administrations met throughout to monitor impacts and recovery and to update Ministers as appropriate. UK sectors have now returned to normal operations, and the Cabinet Office will work with partners to review the lessons learned.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for that reply. It highlights the vulnerability of all the systems on which the public and the private sectors rely, and how much they depend on the software and so on. Software manufacture is largely unregulated. Can the Government look at how they can strengthen the requirements for software providers to ensure the safety and security of what they supply to the public and private sectors? At the same time, will the Government remind all operators that they should plan for failure and for when something does not work? What are their back-up arrangements in the event of their software failing?

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for that question and for his huge support for me in my previous role as chair of the London Resilience Forum. Although the outage is not assessed to be a security incident or cyberattack, the issues that he raises will be covered in the cybersecurity and resilience Bill included in the King’s Speech. This will strengthen our defences and ensure that more essential digital services than ever before are protected. For example, it will look at expanding the remit of the existing regulation, putting regulators on a stronger footing and increasing the reporting requirements to build a better picture in government of cyber threats.