Comment Bank let debit orders run 17 times ! (Score 1) 674
In 1997 a major bank in South Africa ran its nightly payment job 17 times. It made a few people instant millionaires overnight, and caused others to have the worse debt they could ever imagine. The bank had to close for business the next day to do a complete rollback (which was successful, perhaps giving them a lot of confidence in their disaster recovery plan).
What happenned was that the job failed due to the job data spanning two tapes for the first time ever. This specific occurance was never tested before. The operator simply ran the job again and again 17 times, until he realized he should call for assistance.
By then the damage was done, but luckily not permanent.
The question is: who is to blame? The operator, the programmer, the tester, the owner or Col. Mustard (who accepted the system).
What happenned was that the job failed due to the job data spanning two tapes for the first time ever. This specific occurance was never tested before. The operator simply ran the job again and again 17 times, until he realized he should call for assistance.
By then the damage was done, but luckily not permanent.
The question is: who is to blame? The operator, the programmer, the tester, the owner or Col. Mustard (who accepted the system).
