THE UK government is spearheading a £10 million programme aimed at finding ways to avert catastrophic failures in large IT networks. Some systems are now so large they are untestable, making it impossible to predict how they will behave under all circumstances. The hidden flaws could lead to crashes in critical networks like healthcare or banking systems.
The scheme has been given added urgency by the failures of power grids in the US and Italy last year. “The system failures in terms of electricity blackouts show that patterns of unexpected and negative behaviours can arise, and when they do they…
