In 2022, there were several major software disasters that caused problems for companies and consumers alike. One of the biggest software disasters was the Log4j vulnerability, which allowed hackers to take over web servers and caused millions of websites to crash. This Log4j software disaster was one of the worst cybersecurity failures of 2022.

Now let us examine some software glitches highlighted in 2022;

A data breach at T-Mobile affects 50 million customers.

The biggest cybersecurity software failures of 2022 is the massive data breach at T-Mobile, which saw 50 million people’s names, addresses, and phone numbers stolen from the company’s servers. The hackers also stole internal documents that included information about a merger between Sprint and T-Mobile—a deal that was supposed to be announced soon after the hack but never materialized due to its controversial nature.

The hackers were able to gain access using what appear to have been stolen credentials for an employee who worked at an unnamed vendor of T-Mobile's customer support department. The FBI has been informed of the incident and is investigating it further; meanwhile, T-Mobile has not disclosed any additional details about how this happened or whether similar breaches could occur again in future years.

 

Slack receives criticism for its new public DM feature.

Slack, the popular messaging app, has been criticized for its new public DM feature. The software flaw allows anyone to send you a DM without you having to accept it. In other words, they can message you without your permission or knowledge! Users have complained that there's no way to turn off the feature entirely, leading to unwanted messages in your inbox.

This is far from the first time Slack has drawn criticism over its software development choices: earlier this year, they released an update that removed users' ability to use the word "slack" in their names; before that came a change in its icon (a cute purple alien named Cosmo) and before that was an incident where Slack accidentally deleted all of its users' shared channels—and worse yet—their chat history too!

 

A TikTok bug reduces followers to zero.

A TikTok software bug that reduced users’ follower counts to zero has been discovered in the popular social media app. TikTok is a Chinese-made app that allows users to create and share short videos, which other users can view. The app gained popularity in the United States after its release in 2019, with many celebrities using it regularly to reach their fans.

Researchers found the issue at the University of Texas at Austin, looking into how social media platforms use user data for targeted advertising. They discovered a software flaw within TikTok’s code that allows any user who knows how to manipulate it (such as someone on staff) to delete all followers from another user’s account without their permission or knowledge. In addition, users who had their followers reduced would not even know about it until they tried looking at their accounts later on—and even then, only if they were paying close attention enough to notice what happened with their followers' list.” This is a severe violation of privacy,” said Dr. Jennifer Chayes from UT Austin’s computer science department during an interview with ABC News today.”One of our biggest concerns here is how easy this could have been done by someone who wanted access.”

According to Chayes and her team, the vulnerability could be exploited by anyone with access to TikTok’s server infrastructure. This includes people working for the company itself or third-party contractors they have hired to provide additional services like analytics, advertising, and marketing.” We’ve reached out to TikTok’s lead security engineer about the technical issues and are waiting for them a response,” she added. “This needs to be addressed immediately because it could potentially affect millions of users.”

 

Toshiba is also the target of a ransomware attack.

Toshiba has been the target of a ransomware attack. Toshiba was forced to pay $10 million in ransom but could not restore all of its data, and the company's stock price fell by more than 10%. The company lost over $1 billion, about 16% of its market value.

Toshiba may have to pay an additional $5.5 billion in damages if it does not comply with the court order from China's State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR).

In 2020, Toshiba experienced another ransomware attack that cost them over $1 billion in losses after their computer systems were hit by a malicious software bug that froze computers across several countries, including Japan, Germany, and South Korea.

Toshiba's stock price fell by nearly 30% when they announced that they would be forced to pay $5.5 billion in damages if they did not comply with the court order from China's State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR).

The Toshiba Corporation was founded in 1875 and is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. The company manufactures various products, including consumer electronics such as televisions, laptops, and tablets. They produce industrial equipment like medical imaging systems, semiconductor manufacturing equipment, and NAND flashes memory chips.

Due to a bug, Call of Duty: Warzone has removed a new feature.

The new Call of Duty: Warzone expansion was supposed to be a huge deal, but it was shut down before its planned release because of the biggest software bug.

The new feature would have allowed players to play as NPC soldiers in multiplayer lobbies, which sounds cool. But apparently, the NPC characters were so competent that they could dominate the game and make life difficult for human players. It's unclear why this didn't happen during the software testing, but there you have it: Call of Duty: Warzone will be released without its most significant new addition after all!

This is a pretty embarrassing thing for Activision to have to happen, especially at the start of the holiday season. It's unclear what will be done with this content; it could presumably be added later as DLC, but that would mean people who bought the game at launch wouldn't get that content until later.

 

Passengers got stranded due to a 4-hour NHS outage.

Luckily, no one was harmed in the NHS outage. But it's a stark reminder that while the NHS relies heavily on IT, it doesn't have enough resources to keep its systems up-to-date with modern software.

Most of the NHS still runs on outdated systems that have been retired years ago. The result is that these machines are vulnerable to attack and could easily be compromised by cybercriminals looking to steal personal data or cause harm through ransomware attacks.

The NHS is also woefully underfunded, with a budget that hasn't kept pace with inflation. This has left the NHS with a massive backlog of repairs and upgrades needed to maintain its current systems running. The result is spending about £4bn on new technology yearly, but only enough to cover about half of what is needed.

 

Tesla recalled nearly 12,000 vehicles.

Tesla has recalled nearly 12,000 vehicles after one of its battery controllers failed and caused the vehicle to catch fire. The recall affects Tesla Model S, Model X, and Model 3 vehicles manufactured between January 2019 and March 2019.

The company says that an over-temperature event may occur in the high-voltage battery control module (HVBCM), leading to a thermal runaway condition. Thermal runaway causes gases to build up in the module and can eventually lead to a fire if it is not quickly extinguished.

The news comes at a difficult time for Tesla, who announced on Wednesday that it would cut production of its electric cars by 7% or $15 million due to weak demand following delays in new models being released this year.

Tesla said that it would also be reducing the price of its Model S, Model X, and Model 3 vehicles by $2,000 due to the production cuts. The company has faced criticism from investors recently over its ability to produce cars at a profitable rate, with CEO Elon Musk saying earlier this year that Tesla was in "production hell" due to problems with its new assembly line for the Model 3.

 

Grand Theft Auto - The Ultimate Software Disaster

Software disasters plagued the gaming industry as well. A bug in Call of Duty: Warzone forced the developer to remove a highly anticipated new feature at the last minute. This software disaster embarrassed the company right before the holidays.

And of course, one of the most infamous software disasters of all time remains Grand Theft Auto. Technical issues, bad graphics, poor controls, and more made it an epic failure.

Grand Theft Auto - The Ultimate Disaster is the latest video game from Rockstar Games, the creators of the Grand Theft Auto series. It's a disaster on so many levels that it's almost impossible to describe them. Grand Theft Auto has always been a popular franchise, but this installment takes everything people love about the previous games and turns it into something horrible. If you thought previous installments were bad, think again because this one is even worse!

The gameplay is entirely different from the previous games in the series, and it's not for the better. The graphics are worse than ever before and don't even begin to compare with other games on the market today. The controls are clunky and difficult to use, which makes it nearly impossible to play the game without dying numerous times.

The story is boring and doesn't make sense, making it difficult to follow what's happening. The voice acting is terrible and sounds like children did it instead of adults. If you're looking for a good video game that will keep you entertained for hours on end, don't buy Grand Theft Auto - The Ultimate Disaster because it won't deliver what you expect.

 

Millions of web servers are vulnerable due to a bug in the Log4j software.

In July of 2022, a critical software error was discovered in Log4j, a popular Java logging framework used by web servers worldwide. The flaw allowed attackers to execute code on vulnerable servers using specially crafted requests remotely. After the flaw was made public, the Log4j team quickly patched it and released version 2.8.2 with a fix.

The vulnerability affected versions 2.6.2 through 2.8.1 of Log4j. It could be exploited when two components were misconfigured: 1) an XML parser called XStream and 2) any third-party library that uses XStream as its default XML parser (like Spring). If you are using either Log4j or Spring Framework 4 or higher versions for your applications, you should upgrade them immediately!

And, finally, a word of advice: Don't try to guess the future. Instead, focus on building a solid foundation for your company and investing in the right software. If you do that, you can avoid many of these common software glitches—and other potential disaster scenarios!

Avoid negative press attention, angry customers, and frustrated employees by embracing continuous testing. This is especially important given the increasing prevalence of Agile and DevOps methodologies. The frequency of change involved in these approaches can’t be handled using traditional methods without risking an epic software failures. Waiting to test until after changes have been deployed is no better – business processes need to be checked early and often to avoid failure. More about the SAFe bet over Agile for enterprise applications here.

2022 saw no shortage of high-profile software disasters across many industries. Companies must prioritize continuous testing and upgrading to avoid similar catastrophic failures.

Don’t wait until something breaks to make a fix. Worksoft automated testing solutions support today's development approaches' dynamic and collaborative nature. You can learn more here.