Comment on CrowdStrike downtime apparently caused by update that replaced a file with 42kb of zeroes

Gork@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

• tiramichu@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  If I send you on stage at the Olympic Games opening ceremony with a sealed envelope

  And I say “This contains your script, just open it and read it”

  And then when you open it, the script is blank

  You’re gonna freak out

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  • Gork@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Ah, makes sense. I guess a driver would completely freak out if that file gave no instructions and was just like “…”

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    • PriorityMotif@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      You would think that Microsoft would implement some basic error handing.

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      • planish@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        That’s what the BSOD is. It tries to bring the system back to a nice safe freshly-booted state where e.g. the fans are running and the GPU is not happily drawing several kilowatts and trying to catch fire.

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      • Kaboom@reddthat.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        For most things, yes. But if someone were to compromise the file, stopping when they see it invalid is probably a good idea for security

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  • deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Except “freak out” could have various manifestations.

    In this case it was “burn down the venue”.

    It should have been “I’m sorry, there’s been an issue, let’s move on to the next speaker”

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    • Strykker@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      Except since it was an antivirus software the system is basically told “I must be running for you to finish booting”, which does make sense as it means the antivirus can watch the system before any malicious code can get it’s hooks into things.

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      • Morphit@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        I don’t think the kernel could continue like that. The driver runs in kernel mode and took a null pointer exception. The kernel can’t know how badly it’s been screwed by that, the only feasible option is to BSOD.

        The driver itself is where the error handling should take place. First off it ought to have static checks to prove it can’t have trivial memory errors like this. Secondly, if a configuration file fails to load, it should make a determination about whether it’s safe to continue or halt the system to prevent a potential exploit. You know, instead of shitting its pants and letting Windows handle it.

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    • the_crotch@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      In this case it was “burn down the venue”.

      It was more like “barricade the doors until a swat team sniper gets a clear shot at you”.

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      • deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        Hmmmm.

        More like standing there and loudly shitting your pants and spreading it around the stage.

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    • tiramichu@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      You’re right of course and that should be on Microsoft to better implement their driver loading. But yes.

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      • Morphit@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        The driver is in kernel mode. If it crashes, the kernel has no idea if any internal structures have been left in an inconsistent state. If it doesn’t halt then it has the potential to cause all sorts of damage.

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    • OozingPositron@feddit.cl ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      Computers have social anxiety.

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    • Thann@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      The envelope contains a barrel of diesel and a lit flare

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  • sigmaklimgrindset@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Great layman’s explanation.

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  • digdilem@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Nice analogy, except you’d check the script before you tried to use it. Computers are really good at crc/hash checking files to verify their integrity, and that’s exactly what a privileged process like antivirus should do with every source of information.

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  • Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Maybe. But I’d like to think I’d just say something clever like, “says here that this year the pummel horse will be replaced by yours truly!”

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    • Takios@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      Problem is that software cannot deal with unexpected situations like a human brain can. Computers do exactly what a programmer tells it to do, nothing more nothing less. So if a situation arises that the programmer hasn’t written code for, then there will be a crash.

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      • deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        Poorly written code can’t.

        In this case:

        1. Load config data
        2. If data is valid:
           1. Use config data
        3. If data is invalid:
           1. Crash entire OS

        Is just poor code.

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    • Hazzia@infosec.pub ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      I’m gonna take from this that we should have AI doing disaster recovery on all deployments. Tech CEO’s have been hyping AI up so much, what could possibly go wrong?

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      • Couldbealeotard@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        What are the chances that Crowdstrike started using ai to do their update deployments, and they just won’t admit it?

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  • Cocodapuf@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    I’m nominating this for the “best metaphor of the day” award.

    Well done!

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  • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    The ironic bit is, I’m sure more than a few people at Crowdstrike are preparing 3 envelopes right now.

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  • crystalmerchant@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    This guy ELI5s

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  • CeeBee_Eh@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Ah yes. So Windows is the screaming in terror version and other systems are the “oh, sorry everyone, looks like there’s an error. Let’s just move on to the next bit” version.

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• MajinBlayze@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  Because it’s supposed to be something else

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  • jared@mander.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    At least a few 1’s I imagine.

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    • Iheartcheese@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      What if we put in a 2

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      • NaibofTabr@infosec.pub ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        Image

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      • kinkles@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        Society isn’t ready for that

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  • thurstylark@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Well, you see, the front fell off.

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• driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  The file is used to store values to use as denominators on some divisions down the process. Being all zeros is caused a division by zero erro. Pretty rookie mistake, you should do IFERROR(;0) when using divisions to avoid thay.

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  • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    I disagree. I’d rather things crash than silently succeed or change the computation. They should have done better input and output validation, and gracefully fail into a recoverable state that sends a message to an admin to correct. A divide by zero doesn’t crash a system, it’s a recoverable error they should 100% detect and handle, hot sweep under the rug.

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    • driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      Life pro tip: if you’re a python programmer you should use try: func() except: continue every time you run a function, that way ypu would never have errors on your code.

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      • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        Lol.

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      • CeeBee_Eh@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        that way ypu would never have errors on your code.

        🤔

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  • Morphit@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    IFERROR(;0)

    Maybe they should use a more appropriate development tool for their critical security platform than Excel.

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• urquell@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  Well, the file shouldn’t be zeroes

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  • lastjunkieonearth@lemdro.id ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    The front of the file fell off

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• LodeMike@lemmy.today ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  Windows

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