Tech Horrors: Tech Fails That Are the Stuff of Nightmares

While ghosts and goblins might be more popular scarers for Halloween, one need only tell one’s self that it isn’t real.

From Frankenstein to golems, horror stories often rely on man’s own creation turning and attacking its maker. However, unless one has an interest in science and alchemy and enjoys sewing disparate parts of random dead bodies together, it’s unlikely anyone will ever actually face Frankenstein.

But that doesn’t mean man is safe from the horrors of their own creations going awry–and often that creation is of the digital variety. So just how horrifying can it be when a digital creation goes wrong?

1. The Mars Climate Orbiter Crash

After a $125 million investment, NASA’s Mars Climate Orbiter took flight for Mars in 1998. Nine months later, the orbiter reached its destination–only to disintegrate upon entering Mars’ atmosphere. The cause was a simple unit conversion error. One engineering team used metric units and another used imperial units. The resulting miscalculation in the spacecraft’s trajectory caused the obliteration of the orbiter.

2. The Equifax Data Breach

Ironically, the breach began in a consumer complaint portal. Although the vulnerability was well-known, and Equifax should have patched it, internal issues caused the patch to not be applied. Since their systems weren’t segmented, the attackers were able to move from one system to another and extract a lot of data. In the end, the personal information of 147 million people was compromised, including Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses, and even some driver’s license numbers. 

3. The Samsung Galaxy Note 7 Explosions

In 2016, reports of the Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7s spontaneously catching fire emerged. No, it was not a poltergeist. The problem was a far more prosaic battery defect. The company issued a recall and replacement program, but the problem remained. Ultimately, Samsung had to recall the entire line, which cost the company billions and damaged its reputation.

4. The Therac-25 Radiation Overdoses

In the 1980s, the Therac-25 radiation therapy machine replaced the previous model’s hardware safety measure with software safety measures. Only the software had an error which caused patients to receive dangerous, or even lethal, doses of radiation. 

5. The Knight Capital Group Trading Glitch

In just 45 minutes, the Knight Capital Group, a major financial services firm, lost $440 million due to a trading software glitch. In 2012, a technician inadvertently deployed a new software release without copying an essential configuration file. This error caused the trading algorithm to malfunction and perform a flood of erroneous trades at an alarming rate. The loss was so severe it nearly bankrupted the firm.

6. The Volkswagen Emissions Scandal

Volkswagen used their software skills for dishonesty in 2015. The company installed software that would kick in emissions’ controls only during emission laboratory testing. The rest of the time, the emissions were at levels that were 40 times higher. 

Scarier Than Fiction?

 While most of these are not as scary as ghosts, each incident highlights the way that technology can go wrong—or be used to do wrong. Our blood might be safe from vampires, but our data is at risk from unethical companies. Our brains might not be eaten by zombies, but malfunctioning technology could do great harm to our bodies. Aliens might not appear in our skies, but human error when interacting with technology can create huge problems.

If you do have a technology problem and need the right technology partner to help, contact us to schedule a free assessment.