Microsoft's global sprawl under fire from regulators after Windows outage

However, I'll say that, while this clearly is not Microsoft's fault, the realization of just how much critical infrastructure is running on Windows -- let alone Windows that's connected to the internet and has automatic updates enabled -- was sobering.

Are kernel mode drives maybe a bad idea? Yes! Should Windows be able to automatically roll back if a kernel mode driver fails? Yes! Should CrowdStrike have tested before pushing out the update? Yes! Should hospitals, police stations, airlines, etc be testing any and all updates that come their way prior to releasing them onto the rest of their fleets? Yes!

And so on and so on. The failures here are legion. I can at least say for myself that all of that (and more) is what I'm grappling with today, rather than the direct, root cause and content of the issue itself.

I say this entirely with as little tribalism or bias as I can muster: Windows should not be the foundation upon which critical infrastructure is built. It is a bad OS. It is a rickety, insecure mess; this observation (note that I did not say opinion) has only ever increased with time.

The NT kernel, I hear, is great. I generally trust those who say this, as they tend to be demonstrably much smarter than I am, especially with regards to kernel design, which is something I know next to nothing about.

But Windows? Nah man. Maybe there's a good kernel running the show, but the OS as a whole is a shitshow. Yes, this exact same problem could have (and has) happened on Linux; the OS is indeed not the culprit. But the understanding that this one, single, no good very bad OS is responsible for this much critical infrastructure going from an abstract worry to a real, concrete horror show has, I think, hit a lot of people, leading to a poorly-pivoted change of subject.

The crash was caused by a configuration update pushed by crowdstrike, not a new driver.

>Whilst telling their corporate customers that using Microsoft InTune will allow them to be in full control of their configuration management.

How is this relevant? This wasn't caused by some sysadmin that goofed a config change using intune, it's something pushed by crowdstrike itself.

Microsoft didn’t do enough due diligence on the behaviour of CrowdStrike updates. It shouldn’t allow out-of-band updates.

Third-parties should not be signing code that allows third-parties to reach into corporate services and push files.

Microsoft InTune is the mechanism that all configuration updates should use.

It appears to me that Microsoft makes it harder for third-parties to update an Xbox game, than the configuration of a kernel driver.

It's ironic that you're saying this given the points you're making below. Let's go through them:

>Are kernel mode drives maybe a bad idea? Yes!

You can't have a EDR product that isn't kernel mode. Otherwise it's trivial for malware to evade (eg. by being kernel mode themselves).

>Should Windows be able to automatically roll back if a kernel mode driver fails? Yes!

see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41019743

>Should hospitals, police stations, airlines, etc be testing any and all updates that come their way prior to releasing them onto the rest of their fleets? Yes!

Getting companies to test updates is already like pulling teeth. Besides, crowdstrike said the update they pushed was "designed to target newly observed, malicious named pipes being used by common C2 frameworks in cyberattacks". Is this something you really want to sit on for testing, which might take weeks or months?

>Windows should not be the foundation upon which critical infrastructure is built. It is a bad OS. It is a rickety, insecure mess; this observation (note that I did not say opinion) has only ever increased with time.

>The NT kernel, I hear, is great. I generally trust those who say this, as they tend to be demonstrably much smarter than I am, especially with regards to kernel design, which is something I know next to nothing about.

>But Windows? Nah man. Maybe there's a good kernel running the show, but the OS as a whole is a shitshow.

What specific security issues do you think windows/NT kernel has? Moreover, how is windows being a "shitshow" relevant to the question of resiliency or dependence? Don't get me wrong, windows spying on you or using dark patterns to get you to use Edge or whatever isn't great, but it's a weird thing to bring up in a discussion about how airports run on windows, and reeks of "don't let a disaster go to waste" on the part of the anti-windows tribe.