A massive IT outage has thrown travel into disarray across the globe, with banking and healthcare services also taking a hit. The chaos has grounded flights and caused long queues at airports. Crowdstrike, a cyber-security firm, admitted that a botched update to its antivirus software was the culprit. Airports bore the brunt, with at least 1,400 flights cancelled globally. Payment systems also spun out of control, forcing many shops and supermarkets to switch to cash-only transactions. Healthcare wasn’t spared either, with Israel switching 15 hospitals to manual processes and UK surgeries facing appointment booking woes. Microsoft is now racing against the clock to iron out the effects of the outage.
1. What new words or phrases have you
learned in this passage?
2. Have you ever been stranded at the
airport due to a flight cancellation? What happened?
3. How would you feel if you had to use
cash for everything again?
4. Have you ever experienced a major
inconvenience because of a technology failure? What happened, and how did it
impact you?
5. How do you think people in different
countries might react to such an IT outage? Would the responses be different in
your home country?
6. Do you think we are too dependent on
technology? What are some ways you could reduce your reliance on it in daily
life?
7.
Imagine
you had to spend an entire week without any technology. How would you spend the
week?
8. Have you ever been in a
situation when technology created more problems than it solved?
