The tug of war between the testers and the cybercriminals is a never-ending war. Where the testers keep producing some really top software testing tools to keep cyber threats at bay, cybercriminals keep coming up with new ways to get into the systems and software of different organizations. Testers are not meant to win every war so there have been times when huge software failures have put a question mark on the expertise and efforts of testing companies. Are you aware of the major software failures of history? If not, here are some of the major software failures from history:

NASA’s Mars Climate Orbiter

NASA’s Mars aircraft was one of the most huge and exciting projects of 2998. Everything was going fine until the aircraft went into space and was lost forever. While the whole team was in shock, it was revealed later that a sub-contractor on the engineering team was the one to be blamed. This contractor forgot to make a simple conversion from English units to metric and hence, the whole project became a huge failure. NASA lost $125 million in this project.

EDS Child Support System

It was in 2004, that EDS decided to introduce a complex and innovative IT system to the Child Support Agency (CSA) in the UK. After some time, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) ordered to restructure the entire agency as well. Both of the projects were started with some time gap in between but when they were launched, they failed to work in harmony and resulted in irreversible errors. Had the development used software testing tools, the company would not have lost billions of dollars.

Bitcoin Hack, Mt. Gox

Who is not aware of the name Bitcoin? It was introduced only a few years back but has managed to gain a lot of fame. In 2010, a Japanese bitcoin exchange was opened and became the largest in the world. It went by the name Mt. Gox. In June 2011, it was hacked by a group of hackers and they had to suffer a loss of over 850,000 bitcoins. Although the lost Bitcoins were recovered but the company revealed that they have a lot of loopholes present in their systems.

Pentium FDIV bug

Back in 1994, a math professor claimed and publicized that Intel’s popular version Pentium processor has a flaw in it. While he was ready to give proofs, the company only agreed to change chips for the users who can prove the flaw is there. Intel knew that the flaw only causes a minor error and a lot of people would fail to notice it. However, customers got angry and demanded the company to replace chips for everyone asking for a replacement without asking for proof. It is after losing $475 million due to this minor flaw that Intel is now using a lot of software testing tools to ensure not even a single minor flaw is left in the software that can cause them to face another episode of loss.