5 Companies That Had A Rough Week

The Week Ending March 15

Topping this week's roundup of those having a rough week is Facebook, whose systems suffered a service outage that lasted nearly 24 hours.

Also making the list this week are Verizon for its own service outage woes, employees at Western Digital who face layoffs in a global restructuring, Cisco for scrambling to fix a critical vulnerability in a network data collection tool, and Huawei for facing a lawsuit over an explosion allegedly caused by one of its smartphones.

Not everyone in the IT industry was having a rough go of it this week. For a rundown of companies that made smart decisions, executed savvy strategic moves – or just had good luck – check out this week's Five Companies That Came To Win roundup.

Facebook Suffers Widespread Service Outage

Facebook and its Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger systems suffered partial service outages this week, disrupting users and developers on the social media platform.

Thursday afternoon Facebook said a server configuration change caused the global outage.

The outages, which lasted nearly 24 hours beginning Wednesday and stretching into Thursday, spanned the U.S. and extended into other parts of the world, including Europe and Central and South America. CNN Business said the outage was believed to be the biggest service interruption ever for Facebook.

Some users reported being unable to access Facebook and the other platforms at all. Others had difficulty posting content or had problems with the Facebook Newsfeed.

More Than 300 Western Digital Workers Face Layoffs

It was a tough week for employees at data storage Western Digital, more than 300 of whom face losing their jobs in May as part of a global restructuring effort.

The cuts follow the $487 million net loss Western Digital, which manufactures disk and flash storage drives, reported in its most recent quarter.

The planned layoff of 313 employees in three California facilities (San Jose, Milpitas and Irvine) was disclosed in WARN (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act) notices, under a California law that requires employers to notify the state when large-scale layoffs are planned.

Verizon Scrambles To Fix Texting Service Outage

Facebook wasn't the only company dealing with a service outage this week. Verizon had to deal with an outage for its text message service Tuesday morning that hit much of the eastern half of the U.S.

The outage affected customers up and down the East Coast from Boston to Miami and as far west as Chicago.

"We have confirmed there is a texting outage on the East Coast," Verizon support tweeted Tuesday at 9:04 a.m. "Our technicians [are] fully aware we have a ton of customers that are being [affected], and we're working non-stop to get this matter resolved as soon as possible."

Service was restored that morning, but the company has not said what caused the problem

Cisco Patches Critical Default Password Vulnerability

Cisco Systems hustled this week to warn customers that a flaw in its Cisco Common Service Platform Collector (CSPC) can be used by a remote and unauthenticated attacker to log into a system and collect sensitive information about host operating systems and hardware, according to a Cisco Security Advisory.

Cisco issued a patch Wednesday to fix the vulnerability, which was rated critical with a CVSS rating of 9.8, according to Threatpost.

CSPC is a tool used for discovering and collecting information from Cisco devices on a network. The bug involved a default, static password that can be used by a remote unauthenticated user.

Huawei Sued Over Alleged Exploding Smartphone

As if Chinese communications giant Huawei didn't have enough problems right now, the company was hit by a lawsuit this week by a man who claimed his daughter was injured when a Huawei smartphone exploded in her pocket.

The lawsuit was filed in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, by the man who is the father of the minor female who was the victim in the case, according to a story on The Register website and the court filing.

The suit claims that on Dec. 24, 2018 the phone, a Huawei Ascend XT2 H1711 smartphone, "was in the [young women's] pocket when it suddenly exploded and burst into flames seriously and permanently injuring the plaintiff."

The suit argues that the smartphone was "in a defective condition" and "unreasonably dangerous" when it was sold to the plaintiff.