CrowdStrike will be liable for damages in France, based on the OVH precedent

Post by fulafel » Thu, Jul 25, 2024, 1:42 PM UTC

simiones wrote: post #183

fulafel wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are 2 possible questions. (1) - Why is a crutch like "anti-virus" software needed? Essentially trying to reactively cat-and-mouse hostile software that the OS has let execute on the computer. (2) Why doesn't Windows provide AV? Question (1) is more interesting - and (2) is addressed by other comments. I think both MS and their customers have very seldom prioritized security over even small compromises in functi…

The cat-and-mouse game is between OS security features and hackers. AV software is not a crutch, it's an extra level of defense. All OS kernels are vulnerable to malware - this is a 100% given at this moment in history. The question is how to mitigate this problem, and AV is one component of that, as are firewalls, network-level intrusion prevention systems, and a whole host of other security software. Maybe some day…

Post by saati » Thu, Jul 25, 2024, 1:44 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #182

dathinab wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMHO it would send really wrong signals if this doesn't end up with CrowdStrike closing their doors... like if the largest outage in history was caused by you due to a config parser failing and it looks as far as I can tell that they didn't follow industry best practices when it comes to config/parsing handling and probably also didn't follow some best practices when it comes to kernel module programming then honestl…

> it would send really wrong signals if this doesn't end up with CrowdStrike closing their doors I thought the same until I saw the damage estimates. They’re in the single-digit billions. That’s well below CrowdStrike’s market cap. Unless we’re going hard for retributive justice, liability should be enough.

Post by simiones » Thu, Jul 25, 2024, 1:50 PM UTC

Retr0id wrote: post #176

simiones wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it someone other than CrowdStrike's fault that the systems failed again at every reboot until someone with physical access and know-how deleted the crashing driver manually from recovery mode? What should a company operating, say, an MRI machine protected by CrowdStrike have done to recover access in a reasonable amount of time?

CrowdStrike's software should not be installed on an MRI machine, per CrowdStrike's own guidance: "Neither the offerings nor crowdstrike tools are for use in the operation of [...] direct or indirect life-support systems [...] or any application or installation where failure could result in death, severe physical injury, or property damage." https://www.crowdstrike.com/terms-conditions/

Post by 627467 » Thu, Jul 25, 2024, 2:00 PM UTC

dathinab wrote: post #159

tuetuopay wrote: post #138

French here, and working for another french CSP. We lived the OVH incident live and saw the whole aftermath. OVH was held liable because of the data loss, not for the service interruption. Data loss is something irremediable, permanent, definitive. Some businesses were basically ruined from this incident because they had no more data to operate. To add insult to injury, they sold offsite backups in the datacenter lit…

IMHO it would send really wrong signals if this doesn't end up with CrowdStrike closing their doors... like if the largest outage in history was caused by you due to a config parser failing and it looks as far as I can tell that they didn't follow industry best practices when it comes to config/parsing handling and probably also didn't follow some best practices when it comes to kernel module programming then honestl…

Post by simiones » Thu, Jul 25, 2024, 2:08 PM UTC

wkat4242 wrote: post #181

simiones wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That only works when the company has full power to set prices unilaterally, i.e. when it has monopoly power. Which is a separate problem that should be prevented separately. If Cisco gets fined a billion dollars, it can't just hike up the price of a router, as it will lose plenty of business to Juniper/Arista/F5/etc.

They can in the short term because they have tons of companies way too invested in their ecosystem to change. See what VMWare did after the broadcom takeover. They did exactly that.