On Friday, when a CrowdStrike update caused millions of Microsoft systems to crash around the world, many businesses were faced with a choice: accept cash only or shut down until systems were back up and running.
This quickly caused chaos in Australia, whose government Has explicitly encouraged companies do without cash. Photos posted on social media Self-checkout card tills at supermarket chain Coles were shown to be displaying blue screens of death (BSODs). Queues for human-operated tills at Australian supermarkets extended to the back of the storeAccording to local media, some Australian markets they simply closed their doors.
Meanwhile, as evidenced on social media, some Indian airlines had to handwritten problem boarding passes to people with flights scheduled for Friday. In the US, a wide range of companies, including The Norfolk Tides minor league baseball team, Public Pools in Allegheny County, Pennsylvaniaand the Cine Film Forum in New York announced that they would only accept cash payments until further notice.
Starbucks, whose then-CEO said in 2020 that it was changing “Towards more cashless experiences”—seemed to have been particularly affected. A worker at a Kansas-based Starbucks posted a TikTok showing that the mobile ordering system was “completely down.” The machine the store uses to print labels for cups wasn’t working either. “It just comes out blank every time,” she said, pointing to the label printer. She tells WIRED that some customers were “upset and very rude” when she tried to explain. Another Starbucks employee he said on TikTok that I had to write down each order on sticky notes.
Starbucks further fuels the chaos I had a $3 drink deal On Friday, members of its rewards program (at least in the US) won’t be able to shop anymore. One Florida-based Starbucks worker told WIRED that the situation made Friday — an “extremely busy” weekday under normal circumstances — even more stressful. While most people were understanding, she says there were “some frustrated people outside” when the store had to close its indoor dining area and focus on the drive-thru.
Richard Forno, a cybersecurity professor at the University of Maryland, tells WIRED that Friday’s outage demonstrates the vulnerability of our current internet and cloud infrastructure. “Software supply chains have long been a serious cybersecurity issue and potential single point of failure,” Forno says. “Given today’s events, with any luck, perhaps the world will finally realize that our modern, information-driven and often cloud-based society is built on a very fragile foundation that is not built for security or resilience.” (A Microsoft spokesperson did not directly respond to this assessment.)
In 2020, there was a Increase in companies running out of cash in response to the pandemic, which interrupted circulation of physical money. However, The ACLU has warned that cashless stores allow for consumer surveillance and disproportionately affect low-income customers, who are less likely to have a bank account and are more likely to use cashThis, in part, has driven Philadelphia, San Franciscoand NY Pass legislation making it illegal for businesses to go completely cashless.