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CrowdStrike Update: Windows Bluescreen and Boot Loops

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Re: CrowdStrike Update: Windows Bluescreen and Boot Loops

#731

Post by tonymet »

upofadown wrote: post #626

Perhaps a dumb question for someone who actually knows how Microsoft stuff works... Why would an anti-malware program be allowed to install a driver automatically ... or ever for that matter? Added: OK, from another post I now know Crowdstrike has some sort of kernel mode that allows this sort of catastrophe on Linux. So I guess there is a bigger question here...

Vendors are allowed to install drivers , even via Windows update. Many vendors like HP, install functionality like telemetry as drivers to make it more difficult for the users to remove the software.

So next time you think you are doing a "clean install", you are likely just re-installing the same software that came with the machine.

Re: CrowdStrike Update: Windows Bluescreen and Boot Loops

#732

Post by chronid »

belter wrote: post #724

It's not the first time they pull something similar...1 month ago: "CrowdStrike bug maxes out 100% of CPU, requires Windows reboots" - https://www.thestack.technology/crowdstrike-bug-maxes-out-10... 75 Billion dollars valuation, CNBC Analysts praising the company this morning on how well the company is run!...When in reality they can't master the most basic of the phased deployment methodologies known for 20 years...…

What I find definitely depressing is the fact we used to roll out progressively even OS upgrades (I guess now that is done through intune?) and was one point in favor of windows (on Linux you had to do things yourself at the time AFAIK, I don't think the situation has improved much).

Nowadays we get mandated random software upgrading at once on the entire company fleet and no one bats an eye - I counted more than a dozen agents installed for "security" and "monitoring" purposes in my previous company servers, many of those with hooks in the kernel obviously, and many of those installed with random policies to tick yet another compliance box...

Re: CrowdStrike Update: Windows Bluescreen and Boot Loops

#733

Post by localfirst »

1024core wrote: post #716

Read on Mastodon: https://infosec.exchange/@littlealex/112813425122476301 The CEO of Crowdstrike, George Kurtz, was the CTO of McAfee back in 2010 when it sent out a bad update and caused similar issues worldwide. If at first you don't succeed, .... ;-) j/k

Kurtz response is ridiculous blaming the customer on X. He will probably find another company to hire him as CEO tho. Just an upside down world in the C-suite world.

Re: CrowdStrike Update: Windows Bluescreen and Boot Loops

#734

Post by RajT88 »

cjbgkagh wrote: post #666

Due to the scale I think it’s reasonable to state that in all likelihood many people have died because of this. Sure it might be hard to attribute single cases but statistically I would expect to see a general increase in probability. I used to work at MS and didn’t like their 2:1 test to dev ratio or their 0:1 ratio either and wish they spent more work on verification and improved processes instead of relying on tes…

This is almost definitely on Crowdstrike.

There is a windows release preview channel that exists for finding issues like this ahead of time.

To be fair - it is possible the conflicting OS update did not make it to that channel. It is also possible it is due to an embarassing bug from MSFT (uknown as yet).

Until I hear that this is the case - I am pinning this on Crowdstrike. This should have been caught before prod.

Re: CrowdStrike Update: Windows Bluescreen and Boot Loops

#735

Post by segasaturn »

belter wrote: post #724

It's not the first time they pull something similar...1 month ago: "CrowdStrike bug maxes out 100% of CPU, requires Windows reboots" - https://www.thestack.technology/crowdstrike-bug-maxes-out-10... 75 Billion dollars valuation, CNBC Analysts praising the company this morning on how well the company is run!...When in reality they can't master the most basic of the phased deployment methodologies known for 20 years...…

Those "CNBC analysts" truly know nothing, especially when it comes to tech. They're just cheerleaders who repeat talking points all days.

Re: CrowdStrike Update: Windows Bluescreen and Boot Loops

#736

Post by willmadden »

jmcgough wrote: post #131

Took down our entire emergency department as we were treating a heart attack. 911 down for our state too. Nowhere for people to be diverted to because the other nearby hospitals are down. Hard to imagine how many millions of not billions of dollars this one bad update caused.

I'm guessing hundreds of billions if you could somehow add it all up.

I can't believe they pushed updates to 100% of Windows machines and somehow didn't notice a reboot loop. Epic gross negligence. Are their employees really this incompetent? It's unbelievable.

I wonder where MSFT and Crowdstrike are most vulnerable to lawsuits?

Re: CrowdStrike Update: Windows Bluescreen and Boot Loops

#737

Post by nu11ptr »

This whole thing likely would have been averted had microkernel architectures caught on during the early days (with all drivers in user mode). Performance would have likely been a non-issue, not only due to the state of the art L4 designs that came later, but mostly because had it been adopted everything in the industry would have evolved with it (async I/O more prevalent, batched syscalls, etc.).

I will admit we've done pretty well with kernel drivers (and better than I would have ever expected tbh), but given our new security focused environment it seems like now is the time to start pivoting again. The trade offs are worth it IMO.

Re: CrowdStrike Update: Windows Bluescreen and Boot Loops

#738

Post by make3 »

eitland wrote: post #468

Some Canonical guy I think many years ago mentioned this as their sales strategy a few year ago after a particularly nasty Windows outage: We don't ask customers to switch all systems from Windows to Ubuntu, but to consider moving maybe a third to Ubuntu so they won't sit completely helpless next time Windows fail spectacularly. While I see more and more Ubuntu systems, and recently have even spotted Landscape in the…

things are so interdependent that in this scenario you might now just end up crashing the system if either Windows or Ubuntu are down instead of just the one of them you chose

Re: CrowdStrike Update: Windows Bluescreen and Boot Loops

#739

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

nimbius wrote: post #669

I work for a diesel truck repair facility and just locked up the doors after a 40 minute day :( . - lifts wont operate. - cant disarm the building alarms. (have been blaring nonstop...) - cranes are all locked in standby/return/err. - laser aligners are all offline. - lathe hardware runs but controllers are all down. - cant email suppliers. - phones are all down. - HVAC is also down for some reason (its getting hot i…

Oh man, you work with some cool (and dangerous) stuff.

Outage aside, do you feel safe using it while knowing that it accepts updates based on the whims of far away people that you don't know?

Re: CrowdStrike Update: Windows Bluescreen and Boot Loops

#740

Post by andrepd »

casey2 wrote: post #638

Isn't Crowdstrike the same company the heavily lobbied to get make all their features a requirement for government computers? https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/clients/summary... They have plenty of money for congress, but it seem little for any kind of reasonable software development practices. This isn't the first time crowdstrike has pushed system breaking changes.

Seems to be a perfectly rational decision to maximise short term returns for the owners of the company.

Now make of that what you will.

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