Spectacular software failures

Phil Codd

Phil Codd, MD & chief markets officer (Northern Europe, India & South Africa) at SQS comments, "Our top ten list of 2011 shows that software failures are costing companies and consumers large amounts of money. What is worse is that people are losing jobs and in some cases their liberty because of avoidable software failures.

"The main problem caused by software bugs is negative financial impact and, in almost every case, consumers end up losing out. Deficiencies in software quality often result in costly emergency fixes and/or damage to a brand's reputation, but each of our top ten 2011 software failure examples could easily have been avoided through an effective quality management strategy identifying and resolving potential glitches before they appear," he concluded.

Top 10

1. Financial services giant fined $25 million for hiding software glitch that cost investors $217 million - $ and ?. A software error in the investment model used to manage client assets resulted in this international financial services giant being fined $25 million (£15.7 million) by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The company also had to repay the $217 million (£136 million) backers lost when told that market volatility rather than software failure was to blame for their investment losses.
   
2. Computer system bugs cause Asian banking facilities' downtime - ?. Computer system problems at one of Japan's largest banks resulted in a nationwide ATM network of more than 5600 machines going offline for 24 hours, internet banking services being shut down for three days, delays in salary payments worth $1.5 billion (£939 million) into the accounts of 620,000 people and a backlog of more than 1 million unprocessed payments worth around $9 billion (£5.64 billion).
   
3. Cash machine bug benefits customers by giving them extra money - $. An Australian bank began giving out large sums of money from 40 cash machines across one city. Officials at the company said they were operating in stand-by mode, so could not identify the account balances of customers.
   
4. Leading smartphones suffer an international blackout - ?. Core and back-up switch failures resulted in network services across Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America going down for three to four days. The blackout left millions without email, web browsing or instant messaging services and were reportedly due to server problems at one data centre, in Slough.
   
5. Bugs in social networking app for tablet just hours after delayed release - ?. Just hours after its release, this social networking sites' long-awaited tablet app was already receiving reports about minor bugs from clicking through to pages via panel icons to problems posting comments.
   
6. 22 people wrongly arrested in Australia due to failures in new NZ $54.5 million courts computer system - $ and ?. A new NZ $54.5 million ($42.7 million or £26.8 million) computer system linking New South Wales courts and allowing documents to be lodged electronically led to damages claims for unlawful arrest and malicious prosecution, after 3600 defects in the electronic transfer of data from the courts to the police's database led to the wrongful arrest of 22 individuals.
   
7. 50 500 cars recalled after airbag-related software glitch - $ and ?. A glitch in the automaker's software design and testing approach, that meant airbags for passengers in the right rear seat during a crash may not be deployed, resulted in the recall of 47 401 vehicles in the US and a further 3 099 in Canada and Mexico.
   
8. Recall of one million cars addresses fire and rollaway concerns - $ and ?. A Japanese car company was forced to initiate a worldwide recall of over one million vehicles affected by a design flaw allowing residue from window cleaners to accumulate, which can degrade the switch's electrical contacts and potentially cause a fire over time. This recall followed a global 2.5 million recall by the same company due to design flaws that allowed vehicles to shift out of park and engine stalls.
   
9. Telecoms glitch affects 47 000 customers' meter readings and costs company NZ $2.7 million - $ and ?. After a software glitch that resulted in customers hitting their data limits early, some 47 000 customers, who were overcharged, were reimbursed by a New Zealand telecoms company in a NZ $2.7 million ($2.1 million or £1.3 million) payout.
   
10. Army computer glitches hinder co-ordinated efforts in insurgent tracking. An army computing system designed to share real-time intelligence with troops on the front line has hindered troops by being unable to perform simple analytical tasks. The $2.7 billion cloud-based computing network system runs slowly when multiple users are on the system at the same time and the system's search tool made finding the reports difficult as the information mapping software was not compatible with the army's existing search software.
    

$ = US Dollars unless otherwise stated and ? = stress.

Online links

1. www.networkworld.com/news/2011/020411-axa-rosenburg-group-glitch.html
   
2. www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-17/mizuho-bank-atms-nationwide-downed-by-system-failure-correct-.html
   
3. www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12606735
   
4. www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15243892
   
5. www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15256901
   
6. www.brisbanetimes.com.au/technology/technology-news/police-force-damaged-by-computer-errors-20110608-1ft9n.html
   
7. http://spectrum.ieee.org/riskfactor/green-tech/advanced-cars/gm-recalls-50500-2011-cadillac-srxs-over-airbagrelated-software-glitch
   
8. www.newsomelaw.com/blog/2011/10/31/global-honda-recalls-1-million-cars-address-fire-rollaway-concerns
   
9. http://business.scoop.co.nz/2011/10/19/telecom-makes-2-7m-settlement-for-incorrect-meter-readings
   
10. http://hamptonroads.com/2011/06/computer-bugs-hurt-army-ops