We are currently living in a “hyperconnected society.” This term was first used by Canadian social scientists Anabel Quan-Hasse and Barry Wellman. It refers to a state where everything, including people, data, and objects, is interconnected through the development of the internet and communication technologies. While this may seem like a positive notion, where one can access information without the constraints of time and space, incidents like the “IT crisis” or the “KakaoTalk outage” reveal the stark dangers of a society dependent on the internet when such chain-reaction events occur. As a result, experts are pointing out the need to reduce reliance on foreign cloud providers and seek stable software supplies.

According to a comprehensive report by “Channel PNU” on August 5th, the world experienced an unprecedented IT crisis this past summer. According to a BBC report on July 19th (local time), a large-scale “IT crisis” occurred when the US cybersecurity company CloudStrike’s software update conflicted with Microsoft Windows operating system. Following this, global sectors like aviation, communication, and transportation were paralyzed and approximately 8.5 million devices were affected. Even the LED displays in Times Square in New York were turned off. This incident is evaluated as having caused not just a simple technical error but also worldwide chaos and economic loss. The BBC reported the following day that this incident highlights how reliant the world has become on devices managed remotely by giant corporations and shows how vulnerable we can become to such failures.

■Is it truly “connection” or rather “disconnection”

The most significant damage occurred in the aviation sector. On July 20th, CNN reported that disruptions affected various airports and airlines, including Philadelphia International Airport and Dubai Airport, causing passengers to be stranded at the airports. Furthermore, on August 8th, Delta Air Lines, which suffered damages amounting to approximately $500 million (680.4 billion KRW), filed a legal suit against CloudStrike. Moreover, there were issues with the delivery of blood at blood centers, and disruptions occurred in some medical systems, stock exchanges, and transportation systems.

South Korea was not immune to the fallout from the US-based IT crisis. In July, Yonhap News Agency reported that errors occurred at Jeju Air, Eastar Jet, and Air Premia, leading to the delay of 89 flights and requiring manual check in with handwritten tickets. In response, the South Korean government issued a press release on July 19th, warning domestic companies’ security managers to be cautious as there were cases of malware being distributed by exploiting CloudStrike’s technical issues or phishing emails disguised as support for recovery from the disruption, soliciting personal information.

■The downside of monopolization

One of the causes of the widespread damage was “market monopoly.” Shortly after the incident, the Associated Press (AP) noted that concerns about hyperconnected societies are not new, but the technological monopoly of a few companies exacerbates the severity of the problem. Indeed, according to research by Synergy Research Group last April, the current market share for cloud infrastructure services is dominated by Amazon (31%), Microsoft (25%), and Google (11%), with these companies holding 67% of the global market. Additionally, global spending on cloud infrastructure services surpassed $76 billion in the first quarter of 2024, an increase of $13.5 billion compared to the first quarter of 2023. South Korea is in a similar situation. According to data reported by the Fair Trade Commission in 2022, Amazon accounted for approximately 70% of the domestic cloud market between 2019 and 2021.

The issue of monopoly and the increase in dependency have affected even domestic universities. According to The Chosun Daily report last November, Microsoft, which had been providing unlimited storage capacity for email and cloud services to educational institutions, suddenly changed its policy to limit storage for each university and individual user. The reasons were cost issues and the risk of data breaches. Similarly, in July 2021, Google also restricted the storage capacity it provided to universities to 100TB, which had previously been unlimited. Universities had to come up with measures to reduce usage by their members, causing confusion as services that had been promoted as free suddenly started being charged.

To prevent the cloud monopoly by big tech companies, countries worldwide have been steadily formulating related countermeasures. In October 2023, the UK’s Office of Communications (Ofcom) requested an investigation by the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) into the cloud computing market, stating that it was monopolized by Amazon and Microsoft. Recognizing the dangers of monopolies, Germany also established the 10th amendment to the Act Against Restraints of Competition (GWB) in 2021, prohibiting designated platforms from refusing or complicating data interoperability, thereby hindering competition.

■Ensuring infrastructure diversity

Given the current situation where countermeasures related to cloud services are demanded, experts emphasize that the keyword “diversity” must be fulfilled. To ensure the supply of stable software, it is necessary to have “diverse” infrastructures such as cloud and blockchain, and digital services like “diverse” AI services that utilize these infrastructures. In an interview with “Channel PNU” on August 25th, Choi Yoon-Ho (Prof. of Computer Science and Engineering, PNU) stated, “To provide stable services, it is important to establish various software management technologies and a multi-tiered software and data management system based on the importance of data, led by consortiums of public institutions, academia and private enterprises, all supported by the government.” He added, “It is necessary to strengthen security across the entire lifecycle of software and data generation, and to devise measures to supply stable services through this.”

As technology advances at an increasingly rapid pace, the future hyperconnected society is likely to transform into an unfamiliar form that we have yet to encounter. Regarding our future in such a society, Prof. Choi mentioned, “With the development of new IT technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Cloud, and Blockchain, it is expected to evolve into a form where various computing resources and data are jointly utilized by individuals, public institutions, and private enterprises.” He also noted that “as the boundaries of maintenance and management become blurred in this process, the importance and necessity of shared responsibility among individuals, institutions, and cloud service operators during IT crises will increase, and a management system to implement this will be required.” 

Reported Seo Yoo-Jung

Translated by Seo Yoo-Jung