[f-word]

Not saying the Linux analogy isn't good, but this is more like if entering the flags for `tar` in the wrong order could send you and your immediate family into irreversible ruin forever.

It simply should not be possible, this is about literal tons of money, they shouldn't rely on something this banal.

Simple safeguards can be put in place to prevent this. They don't even need to be very fancy:

Fairly sure a simple trained-human-readable description of what was about to happen (think: this money will go to this acct, this money here and this other money over there) would have saved this people a whole lot of grief.