this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2024
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…according to a Twitter post by the Chief Informational Security Officer of Grand Canyon Education.

So, does anyone else find it odd that the file that caused everything CrowdStrike to freak out, C-00000291-
00000000-00000032.sys was 42KB of blank/null values, while the replacement file C-00000291-00000000-
00000.033.sys was 35KB and looked like a normal, if not obfuscated sys/.conf file?

Also, apparently CrowdStrike had at least 5 hours to work on the problem between the time it was discovered and the time it was fixed.

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[–] diffusive@lemmy.world 0 points 4 months ago (5 children)

If I had to bet my money, a bad machine with corrupted memory pushed the file at a very final stage of the release.

The astonishing fact is that for a security software I would expect all files being verified against a signature (that would have prevented this issue and some kinds of attacks

[–] jlh@lemmy.jlh.name 0 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Windows kernel drivers are signed by Microsoft. They must have rubber stamped this for this to go through, though.

[–] diffusive@lemmy.world 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

This was not the driver, it was a config file or something read by the driver. Now having a driver in kernel space depending on a config on a regular path is another fuck up

[–] jlh@lemmy.jlh.name 0 points 4 months ago (2 children)
[–] Evilcoleslaw@lemmy.world 0 points 4 months ago

So yes, .sys is by convention on Windows is for a kernel mode driver. However, Crowdstrike specifically uses .sys for non-driver files and this specifically was not a driver.

[–] PythagreousTitties@lemm.ee 0 points 4 months ago (2 children)

What about the Mac and Linux PCs? Did Microsoft sign those too?

[–] Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 0 points 4 months ago

only the Windows version was affected

[–] jlh@lemmy.jlh.name 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Not sure about Mac, but on Linux, they're signed by the distro maintainer or with the computer's secure boot key.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UEFI/SecureBoot

[–] PythagreousTitties@lemm.ee 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

So... Microsoft couldn't have "rubber-stamped" anything to do with the outage.

[–] feannag@sh.itjust.works 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

The outage only affected the Windows version of Falcon. OSX and Linux were not affected.

[–] PythagreousTitties@lemm.ee 0 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

This time. Last time it did affect Linux. It doesn't have anything to do with Microsoft.
Sorry to burst your bubble.

[–] Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

what are you on about? who suggested anything about microsoft?

[–] PythagreousTitties@lemm.ee 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Windows kernel drivers are signed by Microsoft. They must have rubber stamped this for this to go through, though.

Try to keep up.

[–] witx@lemmy.sdf.org 0 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

You look so kewl if I were a child again I'd speak just like you

[–] PythagreousTitties@lemm.ee 0 points 4 months ago

Quoting the comment that started this thread is speaking like a child to you?

[–] blind3rdeye@lemm.ee 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

In this thread we're talking about the recent problem with CrowdStrike on Windows that brought down various services around the world. So I don't know who's bubble you think you're bursting by talking about something else.

[–] PythagreousTitties@lemm.ee 0 points 4 months ago

You l people have a horrible time following threads.

[–] BossDj@lemm.ee 0 points 4 months ago (5 children)

So here's my uneducated question: Don't huge software companies like this usually do updates in "rollouts" to a small portion of users (companies) at a time?

[–] deegeese@sopuli.xyz 0 points 4 months ago

When I worked at a different enterprise IT company, we published updates like this to our customers and strongly recommended they all have a dedicated pool of canary machines to test the update in their own environment first.

I wonder if CRWD advised their customers to do the same, or soft-pedaled the practice because it’s an admission there could be bugs in the updates.

I know the suggestion of keeping a stage environment was off putting to smaller customers.

[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 0 points 4 months ago

the smart ones probably do

[–] Dashi@lemmy.world 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I mean yes, but one of the issuess with "state of the art av" is they are trying to roll out updates faster than bad actors can push out code to exploit discovered vulnerabilities.

The code/config/software push may have worked on some test systems but MS is always changing things too.

[–] madcaesar@lemmy.world 0 points 4 months ago

Somone else said this wasn't a case of this breaks on windows system version XXX with update YYY on a Tuesday at 12:24 pm when clock is set to eastern standard time. It literally breaks on ANY windows machine, instantly, on boot. There is no excuse for this.

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Companies don't like to be beta testers. Apparently the solution is to just not test anything and call it production ready.

[–] JasonDJ@lemmy.zip 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Every company has a full-scale test environment. Some companies are just lucky enough to have a separate prod environment.

[–] Norgoroth@lemmy.world 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)
[–] JasonDJ@lemmy.zip 0 points 4 months ago

I'm a bit rusty. I'd give it a C++.

[–] expr@programming.dev 0 points 4 months ago

That's certainly what we do in my workplace. Shocked that they don't.

[–] LodeMike@lemmy.today 0 points 4 months ago

Which is still unacceptable.

[–] LodeMike@lemmy.today 0 points 4 months ago

Which is still unacceptable.

[–] Angry_Autist@lemmy.world 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

From my experience it was more likely to be an accidental overwrite from human error with recent policy changes that removed vetting steps.

[–] rozodru@lemmy.ca 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

this is what I suspect also. I mean it's easy to point fingers at George Kurtz as he was CTO at Mcafee when they had their "little" snafu but...well...yeah. I strongly suspect many of his "policies" he had while CTO at Mcafee carried over to Crowdstrike. dude isn't exactly known for being a fan of testing or vetting processes. in fact he's all about quick development/crunch.

[–] Angry_Autist@lemmy.world 0 points 4 months ago

Quick development will probably spell the end of the internet once AI code creation hits its stride. It'll be like the most topheavy SCRUM you've ever seen with the devs literally incapable of disagreeing.

I was thinking about his stint at McAfee, and I think you're right. My real question is: will the next company he golden parachutes off to learn the lesson?

I'm going to bet not.