Crowdstrike Strikes out

Opinion

Image credit: @aaronoleary

 

Crowdstrike provides Falcon threat checking software to approximately 60% of businesses running on Windows, and a software update shut all those computers down. The flaw crashed computers, because the software has root access -- the ultimate level of access.

Twitter was unaffected, and so it let loose with real-time reports, fixes, and reactions. Here is some of the best of it.

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Cameron Wilson: Reports of Windows computers showing BSOD errors across a lot of different sectors: supermarkets, banks, broadcasters, etc. Downdetector, which shows crowdsourced reports of outages, going crazy rn.

Elon Musk: Biggest IT fail ever.

Brody: There is a workaround...

1. Boot Windows into Safe Mode or WRE.
2. Go to C:\Windows\System32\drivers\CrowdStrike
3. Locate and delete file matching "C-00000291*.sys"
4. Boot normally.

@swiftonsecurity: Note this will not work if your machine is bitlocker-encrypted without getting the recovery key for each machine.

@swiftonsecurity: Just to be clear, fixing this CrowdStrike issue will require basically a human visit to every machine. Some of the machines will not be able to get into the recovery environment, and require a USB stick boot. Centrally fixing this is not possible it happens before anything loads.

Dylan Patel: Y2K24... Crowdstrike down 19% premarket.

Nicole Perlroth: Oh boy. Not a cyberattack, but one of those days when a software update had the same affect.

@vxunderground: CrowdStrike has performed the largest ransomware attack in history. Accidentally.

@alx: CrowdStrike? More like CrowdStruck.

Amjad Masad: “CrowdStrike” sounds like a name you'd give to a bug like “HeartBleed.”

Charles Arthur: One Crowdstrike, and you're out.

vx-underground: Threat actors today wondering where the heck all their compromised hosts went.

@piratesoftware: Technically CrowdStrike is doing its job. Your data is still secure. Even from you.

Dr Emma Salisbury: BREAKING: Militaries unaffected by CrowdStrike outage as their IT hasn't been updated since 2004.

Sean Gallagher: Wow internet seems faster this morning for some reason. -posted from a Mac.

@m363208: It is the other way around. Microsoft users chilling while Mac users still having to work.

Olivia Solon: “Please check on Google for your gate number” - announcement at Heathrow Airport just now.

Charlie Warzel: So basically Y2K was just 24 years late.

@sherieffyi: The greatest culprit for loss of life, value, and property due to computer outages might just end up being security software, eclipsing ransomware in the process by an order or two of magnitude. Congratulations, CrowdStrike.

@sxchopea: Happy International Bluescreen Day.