Technical errors have been blamed by Corporate America's most senior executives for a string of outages this year that have racked up hundreds of millions of dollars in damages, drawing attention to the need for more extensive technology testing. 

Knight Capital (NYSE:KCG) saw its entire survival threatened this week after a rollout of new software proved incapable of handling the realities of daily trading, leading to erroneous trades that led to $440 million in losses, or close to double the market maker's quarterly revenue.  

The company blamed the error on a "technology issue" following the software's installation. If that sounds familiar, it's because technology has become the excuse du jour for when things go awry. 

"You can attempt to use best practices and do everything within reason but you can never predict when a glitch or spike in traffic is going to bring operations to a screeching halt," TechSavvy Global CEO Scott Steinberg said.