this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2024
388 points (94.7% liked)

Technology

59378 readers
2554 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
L3s@lemmy.world
L3s@fry.gs
L4s@fry.gs
L4s@lemmy.world
enu@lemmy.world
388
Some bad code just broke a billion Windows machines (www.youtube.com)
submitted 3 months ago by TimeSquirrel@kbin.melroy.org to c/technology@lemmy.world
120 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike pushed an update that caused millions of Windows computers to enter recovery mode, triggering the blue screen of death. Learn ...

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Toribor@corndog.social 68 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Many compliance frameworks require security utilities to receive automatic updates. It's pretty essential for effective endpoint protection considering how fast new threats spread.

The problem is not the automated update, it's why it wasn't caught in testing and how the update managed to break the entire OS.

[–] jbloggs777@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

It is pretty easy to imagine separate streams of updates that affect each other negatively.

CrowdStrike does its own 0-day updates, Microsoft does its own 0-day updates. There is probably limited if any testing at that critical intersection.

If Microsoft 100% controlled the release stream, otoh, there'd be a much better chance to have caught it. The responsibility would probably lie with MS in such a case.

(edit: not saying that this is what happened, hence the conditionals)

[–] Toribor@corndog.social 13 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I don't think that is what happened here in this situation though, I think the issue was caused exclusively by a Crowdstrike update but I haven't read anything official that really breaks this down.

[–] barsquid@lemmy.world 15 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Some comments yesterday were claiming the offending file was several kb of just 0s. All signs are pointing to a massive fuckup from an individual company.

[–] Wiz@midwest.social 4 points 3 months ago

Which makes me wonder, did the company even test it at all on their own machines first?