Major Glitches Highlight Dependence on Technology

From an outage at the New York Stock Exchange to a glitch at United Airlines that grounded planes for hours, officials say there's no evidence of foul play in Wednesday's technological issues.

But now many are questioning whether we've become too dependent on electronic devices.

In an instant the New York Stock Exchange ground to a halt, shut down for more than three hours Wednesday because of a technical glitch.

"Obviously it's a little unnervning in the sense in reminds us of the vulnerability of this system -- we used to trade with pads and paper," Mike Santoli, with Yahoo Finance, said.

The same day, air travel came to a standstill for more than two hours when a United Airlines computer malfunction prevented communication with all planes on the ground. Across the country more than 800 flights were delayed and 59 were cancelled.

"This is systemwide, this computer failure throughout the United system. That means nobody is going nowhere," passenger Zennie Abraham said.

Think of all the critical systems we rely on every day that are controlled by technology: electricity grids, lines of communication, financial markets. Experts warn that as technology surges forward we need to make sure we have security measures in place to protect it.

"In 2012 there was the flash crash when a technical glitch caused the Dow to plunge 600 points in five minutes," Associated Press business writer Bernard Condon said. "Also, on the Nasdaq exchange the Facebook IPO was botched because of a technical issue."

"So we have seen software problems and technical problems muck up trading before," he said.

A domino effect may have contributed to an additional outage at the Wall Street Journal. Some speculate the newspaper's website buckled after the NYSE problems caused alarmed investors to swamp the site.

Wednesday's outages appear to have been a fluke. The White House said the FBI has ruled out sabotage.

"What I can tell you is, as it relates to at least the New York Stock Exchange and United Airlines, there is no indication at this point of any sort of malicious activity being responsible for the technical issues that they've endured today," White House press secretary Josh Earnest said.

Still, the incidents are a jolting reminder about our deepening dependence on technology and the need for security not only against intruders, but also glitches.