this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2024
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Sure, but they weren't patching a windows vulnerability, windows software, or a security issue, they were updating their software.
I'm all for blaming Microsoft for shit, but "third party software update causes boot problem" isn't exactly anything they caused or did.
You also missed that the same software is deployed on Mac and Linux hosts.
Hell, they specifically call out their redhat partnership: https://www.crowdstrike.com/partners/falcon-for-red-hat/
Crowdstrike completely screwed the pooch with this deploy but ideally, Windows wouldn’t get crashed by a bas 3rd party software update. Although, the crashes may be by design in a way. If you don’t want your machine running without the security software running, and if the security software is buggy and won’t start up, maybe the safest thing is to not start up?
Are we acting like Linux couldn't have the same thing happen to it? There are plenty of things that can break boot.
CrowdStrike also supports Linux and if they fucked up a Windows patch, they could very well fuck up a linux one too. If they ever pushed a broken update on Linux endpoints, it could very well cause a kernel panic.
Yeah, it's a crowd strike issue. The software is essentially a kernel module, and a borked kernel module will have a lot of opportunities to ruin stuff, regardless of the OS.
Ideally, you want your failure mode to be configurable, since things like hospitals would often rather a failure with the security system keep the medical record access available. :/. If they're to the point of touching system files, you're pretty close to "game over" for most security contexts unfortunately. Some fun things you can do with hardware encryption modules for some cases, but at that point you're limiting damage more than preventing a breach.
Architecture wise, the windows hybrid kernel model is potentially more stable in the face of the "bad kernel module" sort of thing since a driver or module can fail without taking out the rest of the system. In practice.... Not usually since your video card shiting the bed is gonna ruin your day regardless.
How the fuck did my Fedora just bluescreen?? Crowdstrike!
*audience laughter, freeze-frame*
Are the Mac and Linux machines having BSOD (-style) issues and trouble booting?
No, because CrowdStrike didn't bork the drivers for those systems. They could have, though.
Nope, because they only shipped a corrupted windows kernel module.
It's dumb luck that whatever process resulted in them shipping a broken build didn't impact the other platforms.
They've got Paid BSOD, I've got FreeBSD, we're not the same.
isn't XNU more decoupled than Windows kernel?