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

Technology

59374 readers
3714 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 1 year ago
MODERATORS
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
830
CrowdStrike downtime apparently caused by update that replaced a file with 42kb of zeroes (twiiit.com)
submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
190 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

…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
[–] [email protected] 37 points 3 months ago (19 children)

The fact that a single bad file can cause a kernel panic like this tells you everything you need to know about using this kind of integrated security product. Crowdstrike is apparently a rootkit, and windows apparently has zero execution integrity.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago (3 children)

I don't remember much about my OS courses from 20 years back, but I do recall something about walls between user space and kernel space. The fact that an update from the Internet could enter kernel space is insane to me.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 months ago (2 children)

You mean you don’t update your kernel?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I do, but I do it on my terms when I know it is stable. I don't allow anyone to push updates to my system.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago

Agreed. Point is, I’m pretty sure programs in kernel space can still read stuff in user space, which can be easily updated.

load more comments (15 replies)