This time the impacts were global.

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CrowdStrike, a multi-billion-dollar cybersecurity firm, had released an erroneous update to its worldwide customers, including Microsoft Windows, which failed to gel with the latter’s operating systems, resulting in widespread ‘Blue Screens of Death’ (BSOD).

The BSOD occurs when Windows systems cease to function for no clear reason, and were witnessed across all sectors of the economy, from airport check-ins to supermarkets, bank ATMs and the TAB, to emergency services.

Locally, the worst-affected were organisations reliant upon long-distance networks, typically connections to Sydney headquarters, including anything with digital payment systems.

Supermarkets were thrown into temporary pandemonium, as shoppers without cash left unable to buy the basics.

Local businesses’ supply lines and customer interfacing also suffered.

“The phones would ring, but we couldn’t hear the other end, so we had to jot down numbers and call them back on personal mobiles just to take their orders,” said Gaye from Mema’s Bakery on the Tea Gardens riverfront.

Tea Gardens Fire and Rescue staff, having lost the use of special personal pagers to the crash, kept one person in-station throughout Friday night.

“We were using our own private mobile phones to communicate, after the person at the station received any calls over the landline,” Captain Jim Wisemantel explained.

The only backup option was the mobile networks, which are notoriously poor in many regional areas, especially the Myall Coast, and have suffered their own catastrophic failures recently too.

Many smaller businesses, however, were able to pull through, mainly due to their use of different systems, proving the value of diversity in technology, like any other field.

By Thomas O’KEEFE