Following a recent update pushed to machines using CrowdStrike that caused businesses, airports, and even hospitals to close globally due to a blue screen of death error, all eyes are on the small number of companies that keep the world running. While we all know about the likes of Microsoft and Google, there are a few companies that, just like CrowdStrike, nobody knows about but that could cause similar havoc across the globe.

5 Okta

Identity management

Okta is an identity management software that helps companies manage cloud-based logins to services and corporate applications. If a user is logging into their work account using any kind of Single Sign-On (SSO) portal, that portal may be managed by Okta. Okta's Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) tools are also commonly deployed across businesses, and Okta can also be used for customer identity management as well.

If it were to go down, it's very likely that many employees in countless business across the globe would be unable to gain access to their work accounts. That includes healthcare and finance, and could even lead to similar problems caused by CrowdStrike. Businesses with redundant authentication systems that can take over if Okta suffers an outage will be able to continue working, but I wouldn't have faith that every business would have that.

4 Fastly

Fastly powers services like Reddit and Spotify

If you've ever used Reddit or Spotify, then you've used Fastly without realizing it. In June of 2021, the Content Delivery Network (CDN) Fastly suffered an outage that saw sites like Reddit and Spotify go down, along with others too like The New York Times, Amazon, PayPal, and more. A CDN essentially makes multiple copies of a website's content so that it can be delivered from multiple locations, especially in locations that are close to where a user is requesting the site from. When a CDN goes down, the website becomes inaccessible.

If Fastly were to go down again, just like last time, you would likely see many websites across the globe become inaccessible. Not every site uses Fastly, but the last time there was an outage it made a significant impact for over an hour until the problem (a bug introduced a month prior) was fixed.

3 ServiceNow

Powering help desks and IT support

ServiceNow is another platform that, should it go down, would cause mayhem across countless companies. It's a piece of software that can run help desks, HR services, management for facilities, and customer service management. If it suffered an outage, many, many companies would be unable to handle IT support and some companies would even lose access to facility management or their own customer service.

While ServiceNow may not be the worst on the list, it's still an incredibly important company that would likely cause numerous problems if it suffered a similar outage on any kind of scale.

2 VMWare

Virtualization software that you may have heard of

While you may have heard of VMWare, the company's primary revenue stream is in enterprise. Plenty of companies use VMWare technology for virtual desktop infrastructure, where employees will often use a virtual desktop powered by VMWare. It's often used for remote access and for cloud management, and there are plenty of applications hosted on VMWare, too.

VMWare's software is used in a huge number of industries, which the company outlines on its site. From finance, to healthcare, to government, and so much more, VMWare is a surprisingly ubiquitous company across a wide range of fields.

1 Zscaler

Security for hundreds of companies

Zscaler is another major company in the world that manages the security for hundreds of companies around the world. It ensures that employees have secure network access and can filter internet traffic. Not only that, it can facilitate remote work and can route employee traffic through Zscaler's protected cloud services. Zscaler integrates with Microsoft's Azure, and the companies have worked together in the past to produce security-related content.

While one of the lesser-known companies on this list (of already lesser-known companies!), any outage involving Zscaler could cause a number of problems. Any business that relies on it for internet access would be unable to communicate with the outside world, and it would make it so that companies relying on it for remote workers would be unable to get any work done.