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What everyone seems to be missing in the CrowdStrike incident
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- pjkundert 2y agoA “Turing Complete” windows “driver” executing unsigned arbitrary code provisioned by “randos on the internet” (CrowdStrike)? What could go wrong…
- chrisjj 2y agoBest not to overlook the fact the article qualifies its analysis with "probably".
- svantex 2y agoYes, since CrowdStrike won't tell us, we'll have to rely on our own or third party analysis. As I write "Since as usual the company won't release any detailed information on what really happened, we'll have to rely on other sources. I found that Dave Plummer's account on YouTube was very good, and trustworthy." But, absolutely, probably is a required qualifier for some statements about the details. What is definitely known is that a WHQL kernel mode driver from CrowdStrike crashes, and removing a single file external to the driver causes it to stop crashing. Some pretty sure conclusions can be drawn from that. No "probably" required.
- svantex 2y agoIndeed!
- dmz73 2y agoOn one hand you are correctly concerned. On the other hand, how much code are you (and everyone else for that matter) running that is not provisioned by "randos on the internet"? Even if you compiled it yourself, do you check all your kernel code and drivers? Firmware? That can just as easily crash your computer and even make it impossible to recover. If you main worry if that "windows driver" was "Turing Complete" you should be horrified that some kernels even have their own scripting built in or available, BSDs can use Lua, and even Linux has Lua kernel module (lunatik).
- gruez 2y agoYou need that type of capability to detect rapidly evolving malware. Otherwise it can just load its own driver and bypass your user mode scanners, or infect all the computers while you're going through the (presumably third party?) certification process.
- smegger001 2y agomalware isn't evolving so quickly as to make to make not fallowing basic IT best practice of testing and staged role out obsolete. What I dont understand is why also didn't these companies just role back to the previous known working image when servers failed to reboot? please say they are not all allowing auto updates without testing and no backups.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- chrisjj 2y ago> The "content update" that CrowdStrike sent out was full of zeroes. Nothing else. Obviously not the intended content. And this simple data caused the driver to crash CrowdStrike has stated that no the crash was not related to the file of zeros.
- svantex 2y agoInteresting, do you have a link to this statement? Also, do they state what did cause the crash? At least removing the file of zeroes does solve the problem, as the instructions both from Microsoft and CrowdStrike states "Boot into safe mode. Delete C-00000291*.sys." That's the file(s) with the zeroes... See https://www.crowdstrike.com/falcon-content-update-remediation-and-guidance-hub/ https://www.crowdstrike.com/falcon-content-update-remediatio... and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bn5eRUaMZXk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bn5eRUaMZXk (3 minutes 20 seconds in).
- chrisjj 2y agoYes I do. https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/falcon-update-for-windows-hosts-technical-details/ https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/falcon-update-for-windows-h... > CrowdStrike states "Boot into safe mode. Delete C-00000291*.sys." That's the file(s) with the zeroes That's potentially multiple files, but do we know only one comprises just zeros?
- svantex 2y agoRight, they write rather cryptically "This is not related to null bytes contained within Channel File 291 or any other Channel File." That's not quite the same as saying "This is not related to Channel File 291 containing all nul bytes."... I don't have first to hand knowledge here, but rely on Dave Plummer's statement. Regardless of zeroes or single files or not, the fact is that bad data in C-00000291.sys in combination with bad validition in the driver causes it to crash. Deleting C-00000291.sys causes the driver to stop crashing. Anyway, my main point isn't really about this. It's about the big bang global roll out simultaneously to at least 8.5 million systems in one go that's irresponsible. The driver architecture is the lesser evil here, although it's bad enough!
- strict9 2y ago>How is it possible that someone sends out an update affecting the behavior of kernel mode code, all at once, simultaneously, to millions and millions of systems around the whole globe at once!? >I've participated in many roll outs, and never would I allow a big-bang roll out like this. CrowdStrike should be charged with negligence for having this type of process. It's just plain irresponsible. Agree with all of this. Related to deployment process or lack of one, the hour of the deployment has always struck me from the beginning. The largest impact was in the United States yet an update was pushed very early hours US time. Presumably the off-hours deployment wasn't because of lowering the potential impact as they sent it to everyone.
- gruez 2y ago>Agree with all of this. Related to deployment process or lack of one, the hour of the deployment has always struck me from the beginning. This isn't some UI makeover that they can push until next Tuesday. They're pushing updates to the detection logic for what could be an evolving threat, so odd timing of the update is at least somewhat justified. Do you really want a botnet to rip through corporate networks over the weekend while you wait for a Tuesday deploy?
- svantex 2y agoWell, you don't want a fancy anti-virus update to rip through the global population of customers, effectively killing 8.5 million systems (according to an estimate by Microsoft) either in the space of approximately 78 minutes, right? What possible malware threat warrants that risk? And in this case, according to CrowdStrike, it was "to detect novel attack techniques that abuse Named Pipes". That doesn't really sound like such an urgent situation.
- znkynz 2y ago(to the question posed in the article subject) is a disclosed root cause, and a learning orientated commitment from Crowdstrike on how they plan to prevent this happening in the future. They feel extremely silent right now (as a customer).
- mensetmanusman 2y agoWould be cool if we could ever know, but I’m guessing the harm from evil doers attacking old device software would be high. (Maybe not as high as the CS incident though).
- userbinator 2y agoHow is it possible that someone sends out an update affecting the behavior of kernel mode code, all at once, simultaneously, to millions and millions of systems around the whole globe at once!? Looking at all the responses to the incident advocating for more centralised control, it almost seems like it was a deliberate provoking of the acceleration towards digital totalitarianism. "The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself." If it's not - all an attacker would have to do is to deposit a file in %WINDIR%\System32\drivers\CrowdStrike with a name such as C-00000291.sys containing zeros - and the system becomes unbootable without manual intervention!* An attacker who has already gained enough permissions to do that can just "delete system32" instead, or worse.
- hk1337 2y ago> digital totalitarianism That seems a bit dramatic. I don’t do big corporate IT but I thought a lot of corporate IT shops have the ability with Microsoft to choose what updates are pushed out to computers on their domain. If so, then something like that could have prevented it, presuming they have the ability to allow a single computer or small group to receive the update to confirm it works successfully.
- salawat 2y agoIt's not overly dramatic at all. Think about what these IT systems we build are fundamentally designed to do. An ID for everything, an event for every transaction, all of which are becoming more and more integrated under central authorities, whether intentionally or not. I'm getting to the point where I'm not willing to implement these types of systems for anyone anymore. Not after seeing the breadth of data hoovering and consolidation being pursued. At some point I just realized the only thing preventing these systems being used in the ways I dread is y'all being decent. ...I'm not willing to cut that check anymore. Seen too much.
- swayvil 2y agoI think it was intentional. A distraction.
- smegger001 2y agoWhat? You think Cloudstrike is going to burn their multi-billion dollar business down for what? The only other things of note were the GOP convention, and Biden publicly announcing his pulling out both of which were widely publicized by both side so unless you think they are burning dollars by the pallet load to distract from the feast of Saint Symmachus, or death of welsh snooker champion Ray Reardon I'm not sure what they supposed to be hiding. I think you need to loosen the tinfoil go outside and touch grass my dude.
- swayvil 2y agoDial it down my dude.
- plorkyeran 2y agoWith a title like "What everyone seems to be missing about ..." I was sort of expecting something other than a repeat of some of the most common comments made about it. "Why didn't they do a staggered rollout?" is literally the first thing that anyone with any sort of IT experience asks.
- NoPicklez 2y agoMyself included, I thought perhaps I had missed something important but it was what most other people were asking
- sshine 2y agoI didn’t even bother to read the article; I went straight to the comment section to see why the author is wrong!
- svantex 2y agoIt is kind of obvious, isn't it? But I've yet to see any hard questions asked in main stream media about the process of simultaneous global rollout of "content updates". But in a recent update of https://www.crowdstrike.com/falcon-content-update-remediation-and-guidance-hub/ https://www.crowdstrike.com/falcon-content-update-remediatio... they have a long explanation of of things are supposed to work, with a lot of nice words (sounds almost AI-written...) and quite a few implications that it's really the customers fault who have not configured their systems to for example stay one version behind the latest and still a very short explanation of what went wrong. But... Lo and behold, what are CrowdStrike going to do to avoid this happening in the future? "Implement a staggered deployment strategy for Rapid Response Content in which updates are gradually deployed to larger portions of the sensor base, starting with a canary deployment." About time... My main point, and the reason for the title, is that this has not been the major takeaway in main stream media analyses. Of course not "everyone" has missed this, but pretty much all media articles about the incident do appear to miss this.
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- jitl 2y agoThe article seems to be entirely speculative. Why decide the channel files are executable code, without any first-hand investigation?
- from-nibly 2y agoThey don't have to actually be executable. They are config that affects the way the code behaves. In fact its pointed out in TFA that the file was just all 0s so right now in order to prevent a machine with crowdstrike from booting you just have to above a file of all 0s in the right folder.
- svantex 2y agoYes, my article is pretty much speculation - in the absence of a proper explanation by CrowdStrike. (Now there actually is sort of an explanation, but it raises almost as many questions as before). I don't have data for a first hand investigation, but do cite the investigation by Dave Plummer - which of course also contains quite a bit of speculation. Whether or not "Rapid Response Content" and "Template Instances" are Turing complete is unclear, but the fact of the matter is that according to CrowdStrike "problematic content in Channel File 291 resulted in an out-of-bounds memory read triggering an exception", so the interpretation of the content is at least fairly complex. CrowdStrike also states that "Each Template Instance maps to specific behaviors for the sensor to observe, detect or prevent", and mentions a "Content Interpreter". Whether it's code or configuration data is not really relevant though, the point is that it's interpreted by a kernel mode driver which did not have sufficient validation of it's "Content" to prevent the crash.
- AndrewKemendo 2y agoWhat’s the most confusing thing to me is why anyone is giving CS any slack here This isn’t a indie game dev or some group of volunteers CS actively sells and uses fear to gain customers to a bad product. Their whole 3B business is based on unearned trust IMO that constitutes fraud if it’s this magnitude. Someone needs to go to jail and investors need to lose all their money and liquidate the company
- NoPicklez 2y agoWith all of this no matter how bad it was, how negligible CS was or just how plain silly it was. Rules in many industries are often written in blood, whilst not the case here (I would hope), these incidents are what sparks change in many cases. We now have large companies all around the world bearing the brunt of not testing an update before putting it into production. Whether it was because of them or reliance on a third party, executives en masse are now aware of what happens if you don't do these things. When we talk about promoting changes into production before testing, we will all come back to this moment
- MrStonedOne 2y ago[dead]
- ChrisArchitect 2y agoDirect post link: https://blog.axantum.com/2024/07/what-everyone-is-missing-from.html https://blog.axantum.com/2024/07/what-everyone-is-missing-fr...
- ricc 2y agoPeople have been saying DevOps is dead… But this is something popular or even basic for DevOps practitioners, albeit with a different name: Canary release.
- fredski42 2y agoWhat everyone seems to be missing is that MS has no way to return (automatically) to a last-known-good (anymore).
- kenny11 2y agoThis is covered in the linked article as well as Dave Plummer's video referenced therein. The Crowdstrike driver is specifically marked as critical to starting the system and so disables the last-known-good mechanisms. Here's the section where Dave talks about it: https://youtu.be/wAzEJxOo1ts?si=aCX8pOTP0D_IRNAx&t=670 https://youtu.be/wAzEJxOo1ts?si=aCX8pOTP0D_IRNAx&t=670
- fredski42 2y agoStill, if it’s that critical it should be deployed through the OS vendor, not some 3rd party. And regression/canary testing at each level (3rd party, MS, customer) seems to also be completely bypassed here, which also baffles me.
- kkfx 2y agoIt's not about automatic updates, it's about ownership or those who decide to update, manually or automatically vs those who can't decide. Aside the biggest issue is still having in 2024 non-declarative, non-rollbackable systems in productions, no LOM, no easy massive automation.
- jmclnx 2y ago> In, short, by CrowdStrike hacking the protocol and Microsoft allowing it to happen This seems to be saying Microsoft is letting Crowdstrike to bypass Microsoft's own security measures for Windows. That rings true, too many times in this industry, easy wins over security. I think the only place this does not happen is on OpenBSD.
- galagladi 2y agoWhy the heck does every single computer in an organization (even the computers in the airport terminals??) need such invasive monitoring software installed? Sounds like compensating for not designing the org's software securely, and not using the operating system's existing security facilities. Sure there's the defense in depth argument, but this is too in depth, and as proven today not without its risks.
- incomingpain 2y agoWhat everyone seems to be missing about water is that it's wet.