this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2024
823 points (98.5% liked)

Technology

60070 readers
3684 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

…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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] independantiste@sh.itjust.works 394 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (8 children)

Every affected company should be extremely thankful that this was an accidental bug, because if crowdstrike gets hacked, it means the bad actors could basically ransom I don't know how many millions of computers overnight

Not to mention that crowdstrike will now be a massive target from hackers trying to do exactly this

[–] Evotech@lemmy.world 223 points 5 months ago (4 children)
[–] planish@sh.itjust.works 86 points 5 months ago (1 children)
[–] SomethingBurger@jlai.lu 53 points 5 months ago

New vulnerability just dropped

[–] peopleproblems@lemmy.world 22 points 5 months ago

Oooooooo this one again thank you for reminding me

[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 6 points 5 months ago

That one turns out to have been largely Microsoft's fault for repeatedly ignoring warnings of a severe vulnerability relating to Active Directory. Microsoft were warned about it, acknowledged it and ignored it for years until it got used in the Solar Winds hack.

[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 1 points 5 months ago

lesson not learned

[–] qprimed@lemmy.ml 80 points 5 months ago (3 children)

security as a service is about to cost the world a pretty penny.

[–] Telorand@reddthat.com 86 points 5 months ago (3 children)

You mean it's going to cost corporations a pretty penny. Which means they'll pass those "costs of operation" on to the rest of us. Fuck.

[–] qprimed@lemmy.ml 31 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

well, the world does include the rest of us.

and its not just opeerational costs. what happens when an outage lasts 3+ days and affects all communication and travel? thats another massive shock to the system.

they come faster and faster.

[–] zbyte64@awful.systems 7 points 5 months ago

You did not just fall out of a coconut tree. You exist in a context of all that came before you.

[–] figjam@midwest.social 4 points 5 months ago

Either that or cyber instance

[–] Manifish_Destiny@lemmy.world 15 points 5 months ago

Where's my fuckin raise

[–] littlewonder@lemmy.world 1 points 5 months ago

All the more reason for companies to ignore security until they're affected personally. The companies I've worked for barely ever invested in future cost-savings.

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 35 points 5 months ago (2 children)

On Monday I will once again be raising the point of not automatically updating software. Just because it's being updated does not mean it's better and does not mean we should be running it on production servers.

Of course they won't listen to me but at least it's been brought up.

[–] shield_gengar@sh.itjust.works 13 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

I thought it was a security definition download; as in, there's nothing short of not connecting to the Internet that you can do about it.

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 6 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Well I haven't looked into it for this piece of software but essentially you can prevent automatic updates from applying to the network. Usually because the network is behind a firewall that you can use to block the update until you decide that you like it.

Also a lot of companies recognize that businesses like to check updates and so have more streamlined ways of doing it. For instance Apple have a whole dedicated update system for iOS devices that only businesses have access to where you can decide you don't want the latest iOS and it's easy you just don't enable it and it doesn't happen.

Regardless of the method, what should happen is you should download the update to a few testing computers (preferably also physically isolated from the main network) and run some basic checks to see if it works. In this case the testing computers would have blue screened instantly, and you would have known that this is not an update that you want on your system. Although usually requires a little bit more investigation to determine problems.

[–] Angry_Autist@lemmy.world 13 points 5 months ago (1 children)

It makes me so fuckdamn angry that people make this assumption.

This Crowdstrike update was NOT pausable. You cannot disable updates without disabling the service as they get fingerprint files nearly every day.

[–] lando55@lemmy.world 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I hear you, but there's no reason to be angry.

When I first learned of the issue, my first thought was, "Hey our update policy doesn't pull the latest sensor to production servers." After a little more research I came to the same conclusion you did, aside from disconnecting from the internet there's nothing we really could have done.

There will always be armchair quarterbacks, use this as an opportunity to teach, life's too short to be upset about such things.

[–] Angry_Autist@lemmy.world 6 points 5 months ago (1 children)

It doesn't help that I'm medically angry 80% of the time for mostly no reason, but even without that this would incense me because I've had 40+ users shouting similar uneducated BS at me yesterday thinking that it was personally my fault that 40% of the world bluescreened. No I am not exaggerating.

I have written and spoken phrases 'No we could not prevent this update' so many times in the last 24 hours that they have become meaningless to me through semantic satiation.

[–] ToyDork@preserve.games 1 points 5 months ago

Take it from me, reality is a prison. If your issues are as bad as mine, escapism is the only solution and social media is the polar opposite of escapism. I'm not saying "do drugs", I'm saying "threaten to quit, and if they call your bluff, make an untraceable alteration to fuck the company over and quietly hand in your resignation" before taking a break to indulge hobbies while searching for another job.

And if you can't afford to lose your job at all for any length, you now have a morally-acceptable reason to kill everyone in your workplace because better death than slavery to a system this corrupt.

[–] expr@programming.dev 13 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Thank God someone else said it. I was constantly in an existential battle with IT at my last job when they were constantly forcing updates, many of which did actually break systems we rely on because Apple loves introducing breaking changes in OS updates (like completely fucking up how dynamic libraries work).

Updates should be vetted. It's a pain in the ass to do because companies never provide an easy way to rollback, but this really should be standard practice.

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 1 points 5 months ago

You can use AirWatch to deal with Apple devices. Although it is a clunky program it does at least give you the ability to roll things back.

[–] helpImTrappedOnline@lemmy.world 30 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

I've got a feeling crowdstrike won't be as grand of target anymore. They're sure to lose a lot of clients...ateast until they spin up a new name and erease all traces of "cdowdstrike".

[–] reddit_sux@lemmy.world 8 points 5 months ago

I don't think they will lose any big clients. I am sure they will have insurance to take care of compensations.

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 7 points 5 months ago

That trick doesn't work for B2B as organizations tend to do their research before buying. Consumers tend not to.

[–] billwashere@lemmy.world 20 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Third parties being able to push updates to production machines without being tested first is giant red flag for me. We’re human … we fuck up. I understand that. But that’s why you test things first.

I don’t trust myself without double checking, so why would we completely trust a third party so completely.

[–] Miaou@jlai.lu 16 points 5 months ago

I'd assume state (or other serious) actors already know about these companies.

[–] Angry_Autist@lemmy.world 12 points 5 months ago (2 children)

This is why I openly advocate for a diverse ecosystems of services, so not everyone is affected if the biggest gets targeted.

But unfortunately, capitalism favors only the frontrunner and everyone else can go spin, and we aren't getting rid of capitalism anytime soon.

So basically, it is inevitable that crowdstrike WILL be hacked, and the next time will be much much worse.

[–] Cryophilia@lemmy.world 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Properly regulated capitalism breaks up monopolies so new players can enter the market. What you're seeing is dysfunctional capitalism - an economy of monopolies.

[–] Angry_Autist@lemmy.world -2 points 5 months ago (4 children)

Sorry no, capitalism is working exactly as intended. Concentration of wealth breaks regulation with unlimited political donations.

You call it unregulated, but that is the natural trend for when the only acceptable goal is the greater accumulation of wealth. There comes a time when that wealth is financially best spent buying politicians.

Until there are inherent mechanisms within capitalism to prevent special interest money from pushing policy and direct regulatory capture, capitalism will ALWAYS trend to deregulation.

[–] Cryophilia@lemmy.world 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

You call it unregulated, but that is the natural trend for when the only acceptable goal is the greater accumulation of wealth.

Yes...obviously.

And that IS dysfunctional capitalism.

Until there are inherent mechanisms within capitalism to prevent special interest money from pushing policy and direct regulatory capture

That's exactly what I'm saying, dude.

This is NOT capitalism working as intended. This is broken capitalism. Runaway capitalism. Corrupt capitalism.

[–] hglman@lemmy.ml 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Its like saying we just need good kings, no ids a bad system. Any capitalist system will devolve in corruption and monopoly. No regulations can survive the unavailable regulatory capture and corruption.

[–] Cryophilia@lemmy.world 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

No system is perfect. All systems require some form of keeping power from accruing to the few.

[–] hglman@lemmy.ml 0 points 5 months ago

Yes, very insightful.

[–] barsoap@lemm.ee 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

You call it unregulated, but that is the natural trend for when the only acceptable goal is the greater accumulation of wealth.

Nah unregulated is the exact right word and that isn't the kind of neolib you're out for. Those would use "free" instead of unregulated, deliberately confusing unregulated markets with the theoretical model of the free market which allocates resources perfectly -- if everyone is perfectly rational and acts on perfect information. Which obviously is not the case in the real world because real-world.

There's a strain of liberalism which is pretty much the cornerstone of Europe's economical model, also, generally compatible with socdem approaches, and it says precisely that regulation should be used to bring the real-world market closer to that theoretical ideal -- they're of course not going all-out, you'd need to do stuff like outlaw trade secrets to actually do that, have all advertisement done by an equitable and accountable committee and shit. But by and large regulation does take the edge off capitalism. If you want to see actually unregulated capitalism, have a look at Mexican cartels. Rule of thumb: If you see some market failure, regulate it away. Like make producers of cereal pay for the disposal costs of the packaging they use and suddenly they have an interest in making that packaging more sensible, can't externalise the cost any more.

Defeating capitalism ultimately is another fight altogether, it's nothing less than defeating greed -- as in not the acquisition of things, but getting addicted to the process of acquisition: The trouble isn't that people want shit the problem is that they aren't satisfied once they've got what they wanted. Humanity is going to take some more time to learn to not do that, culturally, (and before tankies come along nah look at how corrupt all those ML states were and are same problem different coat of paint), in the meantime regulation, rule of law, democracy, even representative democracy, checks and balances, all that stuff, is indeed a good idea.

[–] Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

would you like an introduction to the almighty red rose?

[–] gremllin@lemmy.world -3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

If you start regulating capitalism, thats called something else. That would be saying that the markets can not regulate by themselves, and proving as a myth one of the basics of capitalism.

So I, as well, think capitalism is working as intended. and sure is based on greed.

[–] Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 4 points 5 months ago

Something else, as in what? As long as the means of production is privately owned for profit, it's capitalism.

[–] driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Years ago I read an study about insurance companies and diversification of assets in Brazil. By regulation, an individual insurance company need to have a diversified investment portfolio, but the insurance market as a whole not. the diversification of every individual company sum, as a whole of all the insurance market, as an was exposed market, and the researchers found, iirc, like 3 banks that if they fail they can cause a chain reaction that would take out the entire insurance market.

Don't know why, but your comment made me remind of that.

[–] Angry_Autist@lemmy.world 2 points 5 months ago

That's kind of fascinating, never considered what the results of that kind of regulation can bring without anyone even noticing it at the time. Thanks for a good reading topic for lunch!

[–] Pika@sh.itjust.works 2 points 5 months ago

Yeah the fact that this company calls it feature that they can push an update anytime without site level intervention is scary to me. If they ever did get compromised boom every device running their program suddenly has a kernel level malware essentially overnight.