Conspiracy theories take off after global IT crash
cyberattack, a torrent of online conspiracy theories took off Friday after a major IT crash.
Airlines, banks, TV channels and financial institutions were engulfed in turmoil after the crash, one of the biggest in recent years that was the result of a faulty software update to an antivirus program operating on Microsoft Windows.
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Offering CollegeCourseWebsiteIIT DelhiCertificate Programme in Data Science & Machine LearningVisitIndian School of BusinessProfessional Certificate in Product ManagementVisitIndian School of BusinessISB Product ManagementVisitThe proliferation of internet-breaking conspiracy theories on social media platforms — many of which have removed guardrails that once contained the spread of misinformation — illustrates the new normal of information chaos after a major world event.
The outage gave way to a swirl of evidence-free posts on X, the Elon Musk-owned site formerly known as Twitter, that peddled an apocalyptic narrative: The world was under attack by a nefarious force.
«I read somewhere once that ww3 (World War III) would be mostly a cyber war,» one user wrote on X.
The IT crash also stirred up an unfounded theory that the World Economic Forum — long a magnet for wild falsehoods — had plotted a global cyberattack.
To make that theory appear credible, many posts linked an old WEF video that warned about the possibility of a «cyberattack with Covid-like characteristics.»
The video, available on the WEF's website, had cautioned that
