The CrowdStrike file that broke everything was full of null characters?(twitter.com)
twitter.com
The CrowdStrike file that broke everything was full of null characters?
https://twitter.com/jeremyphoward/status/1814364640127922499
361 comments
A lot of assumptions here that probably aren't worth making without more info -- For example it could certainly be the case that there was a "real" file that worked and the bug was in the "upload verified artifact to CDN code" or something, at which point it passes a lot of things before the failure.
We don't have the answers, but I'm not in a rush to assume that they don't test anything they put out at all on Windows.
We don't have the answers, but I'm not in a rush to assume that they don't test anything they put out at all on Windows.
I haven't seen the file, but surely each build artifact should be signed and verified when it's loaded by the client. The failure mode of bit rot / malice in the CDN should be handled.
The actual bug is not that they pushed out a data file with all nulls. It’s that their kernel module crashes when it reads this file.
I’m not surprised that there is no test pipeline for new data files. Those aren’t even really “build artifacts.” The software assumes they’re just data.
But I am surprised that the kernel module was deployed with a bug that crashed on a data file with all nulls.
(In fact, it’s so surprising, that I wonder if there is a known failing test in the codebase that somebody marked “skip” and then someone else decided to prove a point…)
Btw: is that bug in the kernel module even fixed? Or did they just delete the data file filled with nulls?
I’m not surprised that there is no test pipeline for new data files. Those aren’t even really “build artifacts.” The software assumes they’re just data.
But I am surprised that the kernel module was deployed with a bug that crashed on a data file with all nulls.
(In fact, it’s so surprising, that I wonder if there is a known failing test in the codebase that somebody marked “skip” and then someone else decided to prove a point…)
Btw: is that bug in the kernel module even fixed? Or did they just delete the data file filled with nulls?
The instructions that my employer emailed were:
1. Start Windows in Safe Mode or the Windows Recovery Environment (Windows 11 option).
2. Navigate to the C:\Windows\System32\drivers\CrowdStrike directory.
3. Locate the file matching C-00000291*.sys and delete it.
4. Restart your device normally.> Btw: is that bug in the kernel module even fixed? Or did they just delete the data file filled with nulls?
Is that a real question? They definitely didn't do anything more than delete the file, perhaps just rename it.
Is that a real question? They definitely didn't do anything more than delete the file, perhaps just rename it.
Yeah they have been very obfuscatory in calling this a “fix.” I watched the CEO on Cramer and he kind of danced around this point.
Hindsight is 20/20
This is a public company after all. In this market, you don’t become a “Top-Tier Cybersecurity Company At A Premium Valuation” with amazing engineering practices.
Priority is sales, increasing ARR, and shareholders.
This is a public company after all. In this market, you don’t become a “Top-Tier Cybersecurity Company At A Premium Valuation” with amazing engineering practices.
Priority is sales, increasing ARR, and shareholders.
Not caring about the actual product will eventually kill a company. All companies have to constantly work to maintain and grow their customer base. Customers will eventually figure out if a company is selling snake oil, or a shoddy product.
Also, the tech industry is extremely competitive. Leaders frequently become laggards or go out of business. Here are some companies who failed or shrank because their products could not complete: IBM, Digital Equipment, Sun, Borland, Yahoo, Control Data, Lotus (later IBM), Evernote, etc. Note all of these companies were at some point at the top of their industry. They aren't anymore.
Also, the tech industry is extremely competitive. Leaders frequently become laggards or go out of business. Here are some companies who failed or shrank because their products could not complete: IBM, Digital Equipment, Sun, Borland, Yahoo, Control Data, Lotus (later IBM), Evernote, etc. Note all of these companies were at some point at the top of their industry. They aren't anymore.
Keyword is eventually. By then C-level would've been retired. Others in top management would've changed multiple jobs.
IMO point is not where are these past top companies now but where are top people in those companies now. I believe they end up being in very comfortable situation no matter which place.
Exceptions of course would be criminal prosecution, financial frauds etc.
IMO point is not where are these past top companies now but where are top people in those companies now. I believe they end up being in very comfortable situation no matter which place.
Exceptions of course would be criminal prosecution, financial frauds etc.
Bingo! It's the Principal Agent Problem. People focus too much on why companies do X and companies do Y, it's bad in the long term. The long term doesn't exist. No decision maker at these public companies gives a rat's ass about "the long term", because their goal is to parasitize from the company and fly off to another host before the damage they did becomes apparent. And they are very good at it: it's literally all they do. It's their entire profession.
> Not caring about the actual product will eventually kill a company.
Eventually
By then the principles are all very rich, and no longer care.
Do you think Bill Gates sleeps well?
Eventually
By then the principles are all very rich, and no longer care.
Do you think Bill Gates sleeps well?
People stop caring when they see their friends getting laid off while the CEO and head of HR get big bonuses. That what happens at most big companies with subpar executives these days.
> Not caring about the actual product will eventually kill a company.
Eventually is a long time.
Unfortunately for all of us ("us" being not just software engineers, but everyone impacted by this and similar lack of proper engineering outcomes) it is a proven path to wealth and success to ignore engineering a good product. Build something adequate on the surface and sell it like crazy.
Yeah, eventually enough disasters might kill the company. Countless billions of dollars will have been made and everyone responsible just moves on to the next one. Rinse & repeat.
Eventually is a long time.
Unfortunately for all of us ("us" being not just software engineers, but everyone impacted by this and similar lack of proper engineering outcomes) it is a proven path to wealth and success to ignore engineering a good product. Build something adequate on the surface and sell it like crazy.
Yeah, eventually enough disasters might kill the company. Countless billions of dollars will have been made and everyone responsible just moves on to the next one. Rinse & repeat.
This is the market. Good engineering practices don’t hurt but they are not mandatory. If Boeing can wing it so can everybody.
Boeing has been losing market share to AirBus for decades. That is what happens when you cannot fix your problems, sell a safe product, keep costs in line, etc.
i wonder how far from the edge a company driven by business people can go before they start to put the focus back on good engineering. Probably much too late in general. Business bonus are yearly, and good/bad engineering practices take years to really make a difference.
The question then becomes: if the market is producing near-monopolies of stuff that is barely fit for purpose, how do we fix the market?
That’s too much of an excuse.
This isn’t hindsight. It’s “don’t blow up 101” level stuff they messed up.
It’s not that this got past their basic checks, they don’t appear to have had them.
So let’s ask a different question:
The file parser in their kernel extension clearly never expected to run into an invalid file, and had no protections to prevent it from doing the wrong thing in the kernel.
How much you want to bet that module could be trivially used to do a kernel exploit early in boot if you managed to feed it your “update” file?
I bet there’s a good pile of 0-days waiting to be found.
And this is security software.
This is “we didn’t know we were buying rat poison to put in the bagels” level dumb.
Not “hindsight is 20/20”.
This isn’t hindsight. It’s “don’t blow up 101” level stuff they messed up.
It’s not that this got past their basic checks, they don’t appear to have had them.
So let’s ask a different question:
The file parser in their kernel extension clearly never expected to run into an invalid file, and had no protections to prevent it from doing the wrong thing in the kernel.
How much you want to bet that module could be trivially used to do a kernel exploit early in boot if you managed to feed it your “update” file?
I bet there’s a good pile of 0-days waiting to be found.
And this is security software.
This is “we didn’t know we were buying rat poison to put in the bagels” level dumb.
Not “hindsight is 20/20”.
Truly an "the emperor has no clothes" moment.
The file was just full of null bytes.
It's very possible the signature validation and verification happens after the bug was triggered.
It's very possible the signature validation and verification happens after the bug was triggered.
"Load a kernel module and then verify it" is not the way any remotely competent engineer would do things.
(...which doesn't rule out the possibility that CS was doing it.)
(...which doesn't rule out the possibility that CS was doing it.)
The ClownStrike Falcon software that runs on both Linux and macOS was incredibly flaky and a constant source of kernel problems at my previous work place. We had to push back on it regardless of the security team's (strongly stated) wishes, just to keep some of the more critical servers functional.
Pretty sure "competence" wasn't part of the job description of the ClownStrike developers, at least for those pieces. :( :( :(
Pretty sure "competence" wasn't part of the job description of the ClownStrike developers, at least for those pieces. :( :( :(
ClownStrike left kernel panics unfixed for a year until macOS deprecated kernel extensions altogether. It was scary because crash logs indicated that memory was corrupted while processing network packets. It might've been exploitable.
Haven't used Windows for close to 15 years, but I read the file is (or rather supposed to be) a NT kernel driver.
Are those drivers signed? Who can sign them? Only Microsoft?
If it's true the file contained nothing but zeros that seems to be also kernel vulnerability. Even if signing were not mandatory, shouldn't the kernel check for some structure, symbol tables or the the like before proceeding?
Are those drivers signed? Who can sign them? Only Microsoft?
If it's true the file contained nothing but zeros that seems to be also kernel vulnerability. Even if signing were not mandatory, shouldn't the kernel check for some structure, symbol tables or the the like before proceeding?
No the file is not a driver. It's a file loaded by a driver, some sort of threat/virus definition file I think?
And yes Windows drivers are signed. If it had been a driver it would just have failed to load. Nowadays they must be signed by Microsoft, see https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/d...
And yes Windows drivers are signed. If it had been a driver it would just have failed to load. Nowadays they must be signed by Microsoft, see https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/d...
That was my read.
The kernel driver was signed. The file it loaded as input with garbage data had seemingly no verification on it at all, and it crashed the driver and therefore the kernel.
The kernel driver was signed. The file it loaded as input with garbage data had seemingly no verification on it at all, and it crashed the driver and therefore the kernel.
Hmm, the driver must be signed (by Microsoft I assume). So they sign a driver which in turn loads unsigned files. That does not seem to be good security.
NT kernel drivers are Portable Executables, and kernel does such checks, displaying BSOD with stop code 0xC0000221 STATUS_IMAGE_CHECKSUM_MISMATCH if something went wrong.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/d...
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/d...
Think more, imagine that the your CrowdStrike security layer detects an 'unexpected' kernel level data file.
Choice #1 Diable security software and continue. Choice #2 Stop. BSOD message contact you administrator
There may be nothing wrong with the drivers.
Choice #1 Diable security software and continue. Choice #2 Stop. BSOD message contact you administrator
There may be nothing wrong with the drivers.
Choice #3 structure the update code so that verifying the integrity of the update (in kernel mode!) is upstream of installing the update / removing the previous definitions package, such that a failed update (for whatever reason) results in the definitions remaining in their existing pre-update state.
(This is exactly how CPU microcode updates work — the CPU “takes receipt” of the new microcode package, and integrity-verifies it internally, before starting to do anything involving updating.)
(This is exactly how CPU microcode updates work — the CPU “takes receipt” of the new microcode package, and integrity-verifies it internally, before starting to do anything involving updating.)
> a failed update (for whatever reason) results in the definitions remaining in their existing pre-update state
Fantastic solution! You just gave the attackers a way to stop all security updates to the system.
Fantastic solution! You just gave the attackers a way to stop all security updates to the system.
No, that doesn't follow.
For most systems, a sensible algorithm would be "keep running the last known good definition, until we get the next known good definition"
In other words: ignore bad updates but keep checking for valid ones. That doesn't mean you've permanently lost the ability to update.
Of course, for some systems, different behavior might make more sense.
For most systems, a sensible algorithm would be "keep running the last known good definition, until we get the next known good definition"
In other words: ignore bad updates but keep checking for valid ones. That doesn't mean you've permanently lost the ability to update.
Of course, for some systems, different behavior might make more sense.
When you can't verify an update, rolling back atomically to the previous state is generally considered the safest option. Best run what you can verify was a complete package from whoever you trust.
Perhaps - but if I made a list of all of the things your company should be doing and didn't, or even things that your side project should be doing and didn't, or even things in your personal life that you should be doing and haven't, I'm sure it would be very long.
> all of the things your company should be doing and didn't
Processes need to match the potential risk.
If your company is doing some inconsequential social app or whatever, then sure, go ahead and move fast and break things if that's how you roll.
If you are a company, let's call them Crowdstrike, that has access to push root privileged code to a significant percentage of all machine on the internet, the minimum quality bar is vastly higher.
For this type of code, I would expect a comprehensive test suite that covers everything and a fleet of QA machines representing every possible combination of supported hardware and software (yes, possibly thousands of machines). A build has to pass that and then get rolled into dogfooding usage internally for a while. And then very slowly gets pushed to customers, with monitoring that nothing seems to be regressing.
Anything short of that is highly irresponsible given the access and risk the Crowdstrike code represents.
Processes need to match the potential risk.
If your company is doing some inconsequential social app or whatever, then sure, go ahead and move fast and break things if that's how you roll.
If you are a company, let's call them Crowdstrike, that has access to push root privileged code to a significant percentage of all machine on the internet, the minimum quality bar is vastly higher.
For this type of code, I would expect a comprehensive test suite that covers everything and a fleet of QA machines representing every possible combination of supported hardware and software (yes, possibly thousands of machines). A build has to pass that and then get rolled into dogfooding usage internally for a while. And then very slowly gets pushed to customers, with monitoring that nothing seems to be regressing.
Anything short of that is highly irresponsible given the access and risk the Crowdstrike code represents.
> A build has to pass that and then get rolled into dogfooding usage internally for a while. And then very slowly gets pushed to customers, with monitoring that nothing seems to be regressing.
That doesn't work in the business they're in. They need to roll out definition updates quickly. Their clients won't be happy if they get compromised while CrowdStrike was still doing the dogfooding or phased rollout of the update that would've prevented it.
That doesn't work in the business they're in. They need to roll out definition updates quickly. Their clients won't be happy if they get compromised while CrowdStrike was still doing the dogfooding or phased rollout of the update that would've prevented it.
> That doesn't work in the business they're in. They need to roll out definition updates quickly.
Well clearly we have incontrovertible evidence now (if it was needed) that YOLO-pushing insufficiently tested updates to everyone at once does not work either.
This is being called in many places (righfully) the largest IT outage in history. How many billions will be the cost? How many people died?
So yes, clearly not the correct way to operate.
Well clearly we have incontrovertible evidence now (if it was needed) that YOLO-pushing insufficiently tested updates to everyone at once does not work either.
This is being called in many places (righfully) the largest IT outage in history. How many billions will be the cost? How many people died?
So yes, clearly not the correct way to operate.
I mean this isn't some bizarre edge case bug, its a file full of nulls and a broken parser that blindly imported it.
Its negligence.
Its negligence.
A company deploying kernel-mode code that can render huge numbers of machines unusable should have done better. It's one of those "you had one job" kind of situations.
They would be a gigantic target for malware. Imagine pwning a CDN to pwn millions of client computers. The CDN being malicious would be a major threat.
They would be a gigantic target for malware. Imagine pwning a CDN to pwn millions of client computers. The CDN being malicious would be a major threat.
Oh, they have one job for sure. Selling compliance. All else isn't their job, including actual security.
Antiviruses are security cosplay that works by using a combination of bug-riddled custom kernel drivers and unsandboxed C++ parsers running with the highest level of privileges to tamper with every bit of data it can get its hands on. They violate every security common sense. They also won't even hesitate to disable or delay rollouts of actual security mechanisms built into browsers and OSes if it gets in the way.
The software industry needs to call out this scam and put them out of business sooner than later. This has been the case for at least a decade or two and it's sad that nothing has changed.
https://ia801200.us.archive.org/1/items/SyScanArchiveInfocon... https://robert.ocallahan.org/2017/01/disable-your-antivirus-...
Antiviruses are security cosplay that works by using a combination of bug-riddled custom kernel drivers and unsandboxed C++ parsers running with the highest level of privileges to tamper with every bit of data it can get its hands on. They violate every security common sense. They also won't even hesitate to disable or delay rollouts of actual security mechanisms built into browsers and OSes if it gets in the way.
The software industry needs to call out this scam and put them out of business sooner than later. This has been the case for at least a decade or two and it's sad that nothing has changed.
https://ia801200.us.archive.org/1/items/SyScanArchiveInfocon... https://robert.ocallahan.org/2017/01/disable-your-antivirus-...
Nope, I have seen software like Crowdstrike, S1, Huntress and Defender E5 stop active ransomware attacks.
> Nope, I have seen software like Crowdstrike, S1, Huntress and Defender E5 stop active ransomware attacks.
Yes, occasionally they do. This is not an either-or situation.
While they do catch and stop attacks, it is also true that crowdstrike and its ilk are root-level backdoors into the system that bypass all protections and thus will cause problems sometimes.
Yes, occasionally they do. This is not an either-or situation.
While they do catch and stop attacks, it is also true that crowdstrike and its ilk are root-level backdoors into the system that bypass all protections and thus will cause problems sometimes.
That anecdote doesn't justify installing gaping security holes into the kernel with those tools. Actual security requires knowledge, good practice, and good engineering. Antiviruses can never be a substitute.
You seem security-wise, so surely you can understand that in some (many?) cases, antivirus is totally acceptable given the threat model. If you are wanting to keep the script kiddies from metasploiting your ordinary finance employees, it's certainly worth the tradeoff for some organizations, no? It's but one tool with its tradeoffs like any tool.
That's like pointing at the occasional petty theft and mugging, and using it to justify establishing an extraordinary secret police to run the entire country. It's stupid, and if you do it anyway, it's obvious you had other reasons.
Antivirus software is almost universally malware. Enterprise endpoint "protection" software like CrowdStrike is worse, it's an aggressive malware and a backdoor controlled by a third party, whose main selling points are compliance and surveillance. Installing it is a lot like outsourcing your secret police to a consulting company. No surprise, everything looks pretty early on, but two weeks in, smart consultants rotate out to bring in new customers, and bad ones rotate in to run the show.
Yeah, that's definitely a good tradeoff against script kiddies metasploiting your ordinary finance employees. Wonder if it'll look as good when loss of life caused by CrowdStrike this weekend gets tallied up.
Antivirus software is almost universally malware. Enterprise endpoint "protection" software like CrowdStrike is worse, it's an aggressive malware and a backdoor controlled by a third party, whose main selling points are compliance and surveillance. Installing it is a lot like outsourcing your secret police to a consulting company. No surprise, everything looks pretty early on, but two weeks in, smart consultants rotate out to bring in new customers, and bad ones rotate in to run the show.
Yeah, that's definitely a good tradeoff against script kiddies metasploiting your ordinary finance employees. Wonder if it'll look as good when loss of life caused by CrowdStrike this weekend gets tallied up.
How many attacks have they stopped that would have DoS’d a significant fraction of the world’s Windows machines roughly instantly?
The ends don’t justify the means.
The ends don’t justify the means.
Which is their "One Job" ?
Options include:
1. protected the systems always work even if things are messed up
2. protected systems are always protected even when things are messed up
The two failure modes are exclusive; ideally you let the end user decide what to do if the protection mechanism is itself unstable.
One could suggest "the system must always work" but that's ignoring that sometimes things don't go to plan.
None of the systems in boot loops were p0wned by known exploits while they were boot looping. As far as we know anyhow.
(edited to add the obvious default of "just make a working system" which is of course both a given and not going to happen)
Options include:
1. protected the systems always work even if things are messed up
2. protected systems are always protected even when things are messed up
The two failure modes are exclusive; ideally you let the end user decide what to do if the protection mechanism is itself unstable.
One could suggest "the system must always work" but that's ignoring that sometimes things don't go to plan.
None of the systems in boot loops were p0wned by known exploits while they were boot looping. As far as we know anyhow.
(edited to add the obvious default of "just make a working system" which is of course both a given and not going to happen)
The failure mode here was a page fault due to an invalid definition file. That (likely) means the definition file was being used as-is without any validation, and pointers were being dereferenced based on that non-validated definition file. That means this software is likely vulnerable to some kind of kernel-level RCE through its definition files, and is (clearly) 100% vulnerable to DoS attacks through invalid definition files. Who knows how long this has been the case.
This isn’t a matter of “either your system is protected all the time, even if that means it’s down, or your system will remain up but might be unprotected.” It’s “your system is vulnerable to kernel-level exploits because of your AV software’s inability to validate definition files.”
The failure mode here should absolutely not be to soft-brick the machine. You can have either of your choices configurable by the sysadmin; definition file fails to validate? No problem, the endpoint has its network access blocked until the problem can be resolved. Or, it can revert to a known-good definition, if that’s within the organization’s risk tolerance.
But that would require competent engineering, which clearly was not going on here.
This isn’t a matter of “either your system is protected all the time, even if that means it’s down, or your system will remain up but might be unprotected.” It’s “your system is vulnerable to kernel-level exploits because of your AV software’s inability to validate definition files.”
The failure mode here should absolutely not be to soft-brick the machine. You can have either of your choices configurable by the sysadmin; definition file fails to validate? No problem, the endpoint has its network access blocked until the problem can be resolved. Or, it can revert to a known-good definition, if that’s within the organization’s risk tolerance.
But that would require competent engineering, which clearly was not going on here.
Well.... yeah, incuriously shoving unsigned data from elsewhere into ring 0 and executing it is malpractice.
Their "one job" is to not make things worse than the default. DoS'ing the OS with an unhandled kernel mode exception would be not doing that job.
How about a different analogy: First do no harm.
How about a different analogy: First do no harm.
I think in this case it’s reasonable for us to expect that they are doing what they should be doing.
> it could certainly be the case that there was a "real" file that worked and the bug was in the "upload verified artifact to CDN code" or something
I.e. only one link in the chain wasn't tested.
Sorry, but that will not do.
> We don't have the answers, but I'm not in a rush to assume that they don't test anything they put out at all on Windows.
The parent post did not suggest they don't test anything. It suggested they did not test the whole chain.
I.e. only one link in the chain wasn't tested.
Sorry, but that will not do.
> We don't have the answers, but I'm not in a rush to assume that they don't test anything they put out at all on Windows.
The parent post did not suggest they don't test anything. It suggested they did not test the whole chain.
From the parent comment:
> it’s insane to me that this size and criticality of a company doesn’t have a staging or even a development test server that tests all of the possible target images that they claim to support
I know nothing about Crowdstrike, but I can guarantee that "they need to test target images that they claim to support" isn't what went wrong here. The implication that they don't test against Windows is so incredulous, it's hard to take the poster of that comment seriously.
> it’s insane to me that this size and criticality of a company doesn’t have a staging or even a development test server that tests all of the possible target images that they claim to support
I know nothing about Crowdstrike, but I can guarantee that "they need to test target images that they claim to support" isn't what went wrong here. The implication that they don't test against Windows is so incredulous, it's hard to take the poster of that comment seriously.
Thank you for pointing this out. Whenever I read articles about security, or reliability failures, it seems like the majority of the commenters assume that the person or organization which made the mistake is a bunch of bozos.
The fact is mistakes happen (even huge ones), and the best thing to do is learn from the mistakes. The other thing people seem to forget is they are probably doing a lot of the same things which got CrowdStrike into trouble.
If I had to guess, one problem may be that CrowdStrike's Windows code did not validate the data it received from the update process. Unfortunately, this is very common. The lesson is to validate any data received from the network, from an update process, received as user input, etc. If the data is not valid, reject it.
Note I bet at least 50% of the software engineers commenting in this thread do not regularly validate untrusted data.
The fact is mistakes happen (even huge ones), and the best thing to do is learn from the mistakes. The other thing people seem to forget is they are probably doing a lot of the same things which got CrowdStrike into trouble.
If I had to guess, one problem may be that CrowdStrike's Windows code did not validate the data it received from the update process. Unfortunately, this is very common. The lesson is to validate any data received from the network, from an update process, received as user input, etc. If the data is not valid, reject it.
Note I bet at least 50% of the software engineers commenting in this thread do not regularly validate untrusted data.
I'll bet 50% aren't delivering code that can stiff millions of PCs.
And given Crowdstrike are, and data validation neglect is so common, why have they not already learned this lesson?
And given Crowdstrike are, and data validation neglect is so common, why have they not already learned this lesson?
Not validating an update signature is a huge security compliance issue. When you get certified, and I assume CroudStrike had many certifications, you provide proof of your compliance to many scenarios. Proving your updates are signed and verified is absolutely one of those.
> Like it’s insane to me that this size and criticality of a company doesn’t have a staging or even a development test server that tests all of the possible target images that they claim to support.
Who is saying they don't have that? Who is saying it didn't pass all of that?
You're making tons of assumptions here.
Who is saying they don't have that? Who is saying it didn't pass all of that?
You're making tons of assumptions here.
To be sure. But the fact is the release broke.
I'm not sure: is having test servers that it passed any better than none at all?
I'm not sure: is having test servers that it passed any better than none at all?
It is absolutely better to catch some errors than none.
In this case it gives me vibes of something going wrong after the CI pipeline, during the rollout. Maybe they needed advice a bit more specific than "just use a staging environment bro", like "use checksums to verify a release was correctly applied before cutting over to the new definitions" and "do staged rollouts, and ideally release to some internal canary servers first".
In this case it gives me vibes of something going wrong after the CI pipeline, during the rollout. Maybe they needed advice a bit more specific than "just use a staging environment bro", like "use checksums to verify a release was correctly applied before cutting over to the new definitions" and "do staged rollouts, and ideally release to some internal canary servers first".
"Have these idiots even heard of CI/CD???" strangely seems to be a common condescending comment in this thread.
I honestly though HN was slightly higher quality than most of the comments here. I am proven wrong.
I honestly though HN was slightly higher quality than most of the comments here. I am proven wrong.
Agreed - The worst part is most of the people making these unhelpful comments are probably doing the same sorts of things which caused this outage.
Big threads draw a lot of people; we regress toward the mean
> I honestly though HN was slightly higher quality
HN reminds me of nothing so much as Slashdot in the early 2000's, for both good and ill. Fewer stupid memes about Beowulf Clusters and Natalie Portman tho.
HN reminds me of nothing so much as Slashdot in the early 2000's, for both good and ill. Fewer stupid memes about Beowulf Clusters and Natalie Portman tho.
I don't understand why you wouldn't do staged roll outs at this scale. even a few hours delay might have been enough to stop the release from going global.
They almost certainly have such a process, but it got bypassed by accident, probably got put into a "minor updates" channel (you don't run your model checker every time you release a new signature file after all). Surprise, business processes have bugs too.
But naw, must be every random commentator on HN knows how to run the company better.
But naw, must be every random commentator on HN knows how to run the company better.
> (you don't run your model checker every time you release a new signature file after all)
Wonder if the higher-ups who mandated this software to be installed in their hospitals were informed about that fact.
Wonder if the higher-ups who mandated this software to be installed in their hospitals were informed about that fact.
Yes, yes it is. Because there's tons more breakages that have likely been caught.
One uncaught downstream failure doesn't invalidate the effort into all the previously caught failures.
One uncaught downstream failure doesn't invalidate the effort into all the previously caught failures.
At the same time (and I am looking directly at Unit Tests when I say this) I have seen what is perhaps dangerous confidence that, because such and such tests are in place, we can be a more lax when pushing out changes.
The release didn’t break. A data file containing nulls was downloaded by a buggy kernel module that crashed when reading the file.
For all we know there is a test case that failed and they decided to push the module anyway (“it’s not like anyone is gonna upload a file of all nulls”).
Btw: where are these files sourced from? Could a malicious Crowdstrike customer trick the system into generating this data file, by e.g. reporting it saw malware with these (null) signatures?
For all we know there is a test case that failed and they decided to push the module anyway (“it’s not like anyone is gonna upload a file of all nulls”).
Btw: where are these files sourced from? Could a malicious Crowdstrike customer trick the system into generating this data file, by e.g. reporting it saw malware with these (null) signatures?
A lot of the software industry focuses on strong types, testing of all kinds, linting, and plenty of other sideshows that make programmers feel like they're in control, but these things only account for the problems you can test for and the systems you control. So what if a function gets a null instead of a float? It shouldn't crash half the tech-connected world. Software resilience is kind of lacking in favor of trusting that strong types and tests will catch most bugs, and that's good enough?
Yeah... the comment above reads like someone who has read a lot of books on CI deployment, but has zero experience in a real world environment actually doing it. Quick to throw stones with absolutely no understanding of any of the nuances involved.
There is no nuance needed - this is a giant corporation that sells kernel layer intermediation at global scale. You better be spending billions on bulletproof deployment automation because *waves hands around in the air pointing at whats happening just like with solarwinds*
Bottom line this was avoidable and negligent
For the record I owned global infrastructure as CTO for the USAF Air Operations weapons system - one of the largest multi-classification networked IT systems ever created for the DoD - even moreso during a multi-region refactor as a HQE hire into the AF
So I don’t have any patience for millionaires not putting the work in when it’s critical infrastructure
People need to do better and we need accountability for people making bad decisions for money saving
Bottom line this was avoidable and negligent
For the record I owned global infrastructure as CTO for the USAF Air Operations weapons system - one of the largest multi-classification networked IT systems ever created for the DoD - even moreso during a multi-region refactor as a HQE hire into the AF
So I don’t have any patience for millionaires not putting the work in when it’s critical infrastructure
People need to do better and we need accountability for people making bad decisions for money saving
Almost everything that goes wrong in the world is avoidable one way or the other. Simply stating "it was avoidable" as an axiom is simplistic to the point of silliness.
Lots of very smart people have been hard at work to prevent airplanes from crashing for many decades now, and planes still crash for all sorts of reasons, usually considered "avoidable" in hindsight.
Nothing is "bulletproof"; this is a meaningless buzzword with no content. The world is too complex for this.
Lots of very smart people have been hard at work to prevent airplanes from crashing for many decades now, and planes still crash for all sorts of reasons, usually considered "avoidable" in hindsight.
Nothing is "bulletproof"; this is a meaningless buzzword with no content. The world is too complex for this.
> You better be spending billions on bulletproof deployment automation
There is no such thing.
There is no such thing.
You must have insanely cool stories :-)
What are your thoughts on MSFTs role in this?
They’ve been iterating Windows since 1985 - doesn’t it seem reasonable that their kernel should be able to survive a bad 3rd party driver?
What are your thoughts on MSFTs role in this?
They’ve been iterating Windows since 1985 - doesn’t it seem reasonable that their kernel should be able to survive a bad 3rd party driver?
1. System high/network isolation is a disaster in practice and is the root of MSFT and AD/ADFS architecture
2. The problem is the ubiquity of windows so it’s embedded in the infrastructure
We’ve put too many computers in charge of too much stuff for the level of combined capabilities of the computer and the human operator interface
2. The problem is the ubiquity of windows so it’s embedded in the infrastructure
We’ve put too many computers in charge of too much stuff for the level of combined capabilities of the computer and the human operator interface
So let's hear the "nuances" that excuse this.
I am not defending of excusing anything. I am saying there is not enough information to make a judgement one way or the other. Right now, we have almost zero technical details.
Call me old-fashioned and boring, but I'd like to have some basic facts about the situation first. After this I decide who does and doesn't deserve a bollocking.
Call me old-fashioned and boring, but I'd like to have some basic facts about the situation first. After this I decide who does and doesn't deserve a bollocking.
I think we do have enough info to judge e.g. :This should not have passed a competent C/I pipeline for a system in the critical path."
Thay info includes that the faulty file consisted entirely of zeros.
Thay info includes that the faulty file consisted entirely of zeros.
> That info includes that the faulty file consisted entirely of zeros.
Even that is not certain. Some people are reporting that this isn't the case and that the all-zeroed file may be a "quick hack" to send out a no-op.
So no, we have very little info.
Even that is not certain. Some people are reporting that this isn't the case and that the all-zeroed file may be a "quick hack" to send out a no-op.
So no, we have very little info.
[deleted]
It’s not a matter of excusing or not excusing it. Incidents like this one happen for a reason, though, and the real solution is almost never “just do better.”
Presumably crowdstrike employs some smart engineers. I think it’s reasonable to assume that those engineers know what CI/CD is, they understand its utility, and they’ve used it in the past, hopefully even at Crowdstrike. Assuming that this is the case, then how does a bug like this make it into production? Why aren’t they doing the things that would have prevented this? If they cut corners, why? It’s not useful or productive to throw around accusations or demands for specific improvements without answering questions like these.
Presumably crowdstrike employs some smart engineers. I think it’s reasonable to assume that those engineers know what CI/CD is, they understand its utility, and they’ve used it in the past, hopefully even at Crowdstrike. Assuming that this is the case, then how does a bug like this make it into production? Why aren’t they doing the things that would have prevented this? If they cut corners, why? It’s not useful or productive to throw around accusations or demands for specific improvements without answering questions like these.
Not an excuse - they should be testing for this exact thing - but Crowdstrike (and many similar security tools) have a separation between "signature updates" and "agent/code" updates. My (limited) reading of this situation is that this as a update of their "data" not the application. Now apparently the dynamic update included operating code, just just something the equivalent of a yaml file or whatever, but I can see how different kinds of changes like this go through different pipelines. Of course, that is all the more reason to ensure you have integration coverage.
Dude, the fact that it breaks directly.
You sound like the guy that a few years ago tried to argue (the company in question) tested os code that didn't include any drivers for their gear's local storage. Its obvious it wasn't to anyone competent.
You sound like the guy that a few years ago tried to argue (the company in question) tested os code that didn't include any drivers for their gear's local storage. Its obvious it wasn't to anyone competent.
The strange thing is that when I interviewed there years ago with the team that owns the language that runs in the kernel, they said their ci has 20k or 40k machine os combinations/configurations. Surely some of them were vanilla windows!
They used synthetic test data in CI that doesn't consist of zeros.
Fuzz testing would've saved the day here.
Why not? It's unlikely it was the last null byte in the data file that killed the driver.
/* Acceptance criteria #1: do not allow machine to boot if invalid data signatures are present, this could indicate a compromised system. Booting
could cause presidents diary to transmit to rival 'Country' of the week */
if(dataFileIsNotValid) { throw FatalKernelException("All your base are compromised"); }
EDIT+ Explanation:
With hindsight not booting may be exactly the right thing to do since a bad datafile would indicate a compromised distribution/ network.
The machines should not fully boot until file with valid signature is downloaded.*
if(dataFileIsNotValid) { throw FatalKernelException("All your base are compromised"); }
EDIT+ Explanation:
With hindsight not booting may be exactly the right thing to do since a bad datafile would indicate a compromised distribution/ network.
The machines should not fully boot until file with valid signature is downloaded.*
It seems unlikely that a file entirely full of null characters was the output of any automated build pipeline. So I’d wager something got built, passed the CI tests, then the system broke at some point after that when the file was copied ready for deployment.
But at this stage, all we are doing is speculating.
But at this stage, all we are doing is speculating.
You can have all the CI, staging, test, etc. If some bug after that process nulls the file, the rest doesn't matter
Those signature files should have a checksum, or even a digital signature. I mean even if it doesn't crash the entire computer, a flipped bit in there could still turn the entire thing against a harmless component of the system and lead to the same result.
What happens when your mechanism for checksumming doesn't work? What happens when your mechanism for installing after the checksum is validated doesn't work?
It's just too early to tell what happened here.
The likelihood is that it _was_ negligence. But we need a proper post-mortem to be able to determine one way or another.
It's just too early to tell what happened here.
The likelihood is that it _was_ negligence. But we need a proper post-mortem to be able to determine one way or another.
Yup. I had quite a battle with some sort of system bug (never fully traced) where I wrote valid data but what ended up on disk was all zero. It appeared to involve corrupted packets being accepted as valid.
It doesn't matter how much you test if something down the line zeroes out your stuff.
It doesn't matter how much you test if something down the line zeroes out your stuff.
If a garbage file is pushed out, the program could have handled it by ignoring it. In this case, it did not and now we're (the collective IT industry) dealing with the consequences of one company that can't be bothered to validate its input (they aren't the only ones, but this is a particularly catastrophic demonstration of the importance of input validation).
I'll agree that this appears to have been preventable. Whatever goes through CI should have a hash, deployment should validate that hash, and the deployment system itself should be rigorously tested to insure it breaks properly if the hash mismatches at some point in the process
What sort of sane system modifies the build output after testing?
Our release process is more like: build and package, sign package, run CI tests on signed package, run manual tests on signed package, release signed package. The deployment process should check those signatures. A test process should by design be able to detect any copy errors between test and release in a safe way.
Our release process is more like: build and package, sign package, run CI tests on signed package, run manual tests on signed package, release signed package. The deployment process should check those signatures. A test process should by design be able to detect any copy errors between test and release in a safe way.
The issue is not that a file with nulls was produced. It is that an invalid file (or any kind) can trigger a blue screen of death.
They could even have done slow rollouts. Roll it out to a geographical region and wait an hour or so before deploying elsewhere.
In theory CrowdStrike protects you from threats, leaving regions unprotected for an hour would be an issue.
Not really, even for security updates are not needed by the minute. Do you think Microsoft rollout world wide updates to everyone?
This is definitely their sales pitch, and most orgs (evidently) don't follow the guidance of doing EDR rollouts in staging environments first. That being said, if your security posture is at the point where not getting the latest updates from CrowdStrike quick enough is why you're getting breached, you are frankly screwed already.
Or test in local environments first. Slow rollouts like this tend to make deployments very very painful.
Slow rollouts can be quite quick. We used to do 3-day rollouts. Day one was a tiny fraction. Day two was about 20%. Day three was a full rollout.
It was ages ago, but from what I remember, the first day rollout did occasionally catch issues. It only affected a small number of users and the risk was within the tolerance window.
We also tested locally before the first rollout.
It was ages ago, but from what I remember, the first day rollout did occasionally catch issues. It only affected a small number of users and the risk was within the tolerance window.
We also tested locally before the first rollout.
I don't know about this particular update, but when I used to work for an AV vendor we did like 4 "data" updates a day. It is/was about being quick a lot of the time, you can't stage those over 3 days. Program updates are different, drivers of this level were very different (Microsoft had to sign those, among many things).
Not thay it exuces anything, just that this probably wasn't treated as an update at all.
Not thay it exuces anything, just that this probably wasn't treated as an update at all.
You say even (emphasis mine). Is this not industry standard?
Keep in mind that this was probably a data file, not necessarily a code file.
It's possible that they run tests on new commits, but not when some other, external, non-git system pushes out new data.
Team A thinks that "obviously the driver developers are going to write it defensively and protect it against malformed data", team B thinks "obviously all this data comes from us, so we never have to worry about it being malformed"
I don't have any non-public info about what actually happened, but something along these lines seems to be the most likely hypothesis to me.
Edit: Now what would have helped here is a "staged rollout" process with some telemetry. Push the update to 0.01% of your users and solicit acknowledgments after 15 minutes. If the vast majority of systems are still alive and haven't been restarted, keep increasing the threshold. If, at any point, too many of the updated systems stop responding or indicate a failure, immediately stop the rollout, page your on-call engineers and give them a one-click process to completely roll the update back, even for already-updated clients.
This is exactly the kind of issue that non-invasive, completely anonymous, opt-out telemetry would have solved.
It's possible that they run tests on new commits, but not when some other, external, non-git system pushes out new data.
Team A thinks that "obviously the driver developers are going to write it defensively and protect it against malformed data", team B thinks "obviously all this data comes from us, so we never have to worry about it being malformed"
I don't have any non-public info about what actually happened, but something along these lines seems to be the most likely hypothesis to me.
Edit: Now what would have helped here is a "staged rollout" process with some telemetry. Push the update to 0.01% of your users and solicit acknowledgments after 15 minutes. If the vast majority of systems are still alive and haven't been restarted, keep increasing the threshold. If, at any point, too many of the updated systems stop responding or indicate a failure, immediately stop the rollout, page your on-call engineers and give them a one-click process to completely roll the update back, even for already-updated clients.
This is exactly the kind of issue that non-invasive, completely anonymous, opt-out telemetry would have solved.
This was a .dll in all but name fwiw.
> tests all of the possible target images that they claim to support.
Or even at the very least the most popular OS that they support. I'm genuinely imagining right now that for this component, the entirety of the company does not have a single Windows machine they run tests on.
Or even at the very least the most popular OS that they support. I'm genuinely imagining right now that for this component, the entirety of the company does not have a single Windows machine they run tests on.
It's wild that I'm out here boosting existing unit testing practices with mutation testing https://github.com/codeintegrity-ai/mutahunter and there are folks out there that don't even do the basic testing.
That’s not even getting into the fuckups that must have happened to allow a bad patch to get rolled out everywhere all at once.
Without delving into any kind of specific conspiratorial thinking, I think people should also include the possibility that this was malicious. It's much more likely to be incompetence and hubris, but ever since I found out that this is basically an authorized rootkit, I've been concerned about what happens if another Solarwinds incident occurs with Crowdstrike or another such tool. And either way, we have the answer to that question now: it has extreme consequences.
We really need to end this blind checkbox compliance culture and start doing real security.
I don't know if people on Microsoft ecosystems even know what CI pipelines are.
Linux and Unix ecosystems in general work by people thoroughly testing and taking responsibility for their work.
Windows ecosystems work by blame passing. Blame Ron, the IT guy. Blame Windows Update. Blame Microsoft. That's how stuff works.
It has always worked this way.
But also, all the good devs got offered 3X the salary at Google, Meta, and Apple. Have you ever applied for a job at CrowdStrike? No? That's why they suck.
* A disproportionately large number of Windows IT guys are named Ron, in my experience.
Linux and Unix ecosystems in general work by people thoroughly testing and taking responsibility for their work.
Windows ecosystems work by blame passing. Blame Ron, the IT guy. Blame Windows Update. Blame Microsoft. That's how stuff works.
It has always worked this way.
But also, all the good devs got offered 3X the salary at Google, Meta, and Apple. Have you ever applied for a job at CrowdStrike? No? That's why they suck.
* A disproportionately large number of Windows IT guys are named Ron, in my experience.
On a related note, I don't think that it's a coincidence that 2 of the largest tech meltdowns in history (this one and the SolarWinds hack from a few years ago) were both the result of "security software" run amok. (Also sad that both of these companies are based in Austin, which certainly gives Austin's tech scene a black eye).
IMO, I think a root cause issue is that the "hacker types" who are most likely to want to start security software companies are also the least likely to want to implement the "boring" pieces of a process-oriented culture. For example, I can't speak so much for CrowdStrike, but it came out the SolarWinds had an egregiously bad security culture at their company. When the root cause comes out about this issue dollars-to-donuts it was just a fast and loose deployment process.
IMO, I think a root cause issue is that the "hacker types" who are most likely to want to start security software companies are also the least likely to want to implement the "boring" pieces of a process-oriented culture. For example, I can't speak so much for CrowdStrike, but it came out the SolarWinds had an egregiously bad security culture at their company. When the root cause comes out about this issue dollars-to-donuts it was just a fast and loose deployment process.
> the "hacker types" who are most likely to want to start security software companies are also the least likely to want to implement the "boring" pieces of a process-oriented culture
I disagree, security companies suffer from "too big to fail" syndrome where the money comes easy because they have customers who want to check a box. Security is NOT a product you pay for, it's a culture that takes active effort and hard work to embed from day one. There's no product on the market that can provide security, only products to point a finger at when things go wrong.
I disagree, security companies suffer from "too big to fail" syndrome where the money comes easy because they have customers who want to check a box. Security is NOT a product you pay for, it's a culture that takes active effort and hard work to embed from day one. There's no product on the market that can provide security, only products to point a finger at when things go wrong.
The market is crying for some kind of '10s "agile hype" equivalent for security evangelism and processes.
Crowdstrike was originally founded and headquartered in Irvine, CA (Southern California). In those days, most of its engineering organization was either remote/WFH or in Irvine, CA.
As they got larger, they added a Sunnyvale office, and later moved the official headquarters to Austin, TX.
They've also been expanding their engineering operations overseas which likely includes offshoring in the last few years.
As they got larger, they added a Sunnyvale office, and later moved the official headquarters to Austin, TX.
They've also been expanding their engineering operations overseas which likely includes offshoring in the last few years.
They bought out Humio in Aarhus, Denmark. Now Falcon Logscale.
Alternate hypothesis that's not necessarily mutually exclusive: security software tends to need significant and widespread access. That means that fuckups and compromises tend to be more impactful.
100% agree with that. The thing that baffles me a bit, then, is that if you are writing software that is so critical and can have such a catastrophic impact when things go wrong, that you double and triple check everything you do - what you DON'T do is use the same level of care you may use with some social media CRUD app (move fast and break things and all that...)
To emphasize, I'm really just thinking about the bad practices that were reported after the SolarWinds hack (password of "solarwinds123" and a bunch of other insider reports), so I can't say that totally applies to CrowdStrike, but in general I don't feel like these companies that can have such a catastrophic impact take appropriate care of their responsibilities.
To emphasize, I'm really just thinking about the bad practices that were reported after the SolarWinds hack (password of "solarwinds123" and a bunch of other insider reports), so I can't say that totally applies to CrowdStrike, but in general I don't feel like these companies that can have such a catastrophic impact take appropriate care of their responsibilities.
As mentioned above, clearly the market doesn't reward good engineering.
The industry's track record is indeed quite peculiar. Just off the top of my head:
- CrowdStrike
- SolarWinds
- Kaspersky
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McAfee
I'm sure I'm forgetting a few. Maybe it's the same self-selection scheme that afflicts the legal cannabis industry?
- CrowdStrike
- SolarWinds
- Kaspersky
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McAfee
I'm sure I'm forgetting a few. Maybe it's the same self-selection scheme that afflicts the legal cannabis industry?
Security software needs kernel level access.. if something breaks, you get boot loops and crashes.
Most other software doesn't need that low level of access, and even if it crashes, it doesn't take the whole system with it, and a quick, automated upgrade process is possible.
Most other software doesn't need that low level of access, and even if it crashes, it doesn't take the whole system with it, and a quick, automated upgrade process is possible.
Security software needs kernel level access.. *on Windows. macOS has an Endpoint Security userland extension api
This seems like a pretty clear example of the philosophical divide between MacOS and Windows.
A good developer with access to the kernel can create "better" security software which does less context switching and has less performance impact. But a bad (incompetent or malicious) developer can do a lot more harm with direct access to the kernel.
We see the exact same reasoning with restricting execution of JIT-compiled code in iOS.
A good developer with access to the kernel can create "better" security software which does less context switching and has less performance impact. But a bad (incompetent or malicious) developer can do a lot more harm with direct access to the kernel.
We see the exact same reasoning with restricting execution of JIT-compiled code in iOS.
The Austin tech culture is…interesting. I stopped trying to find a job here and went remote Bay Area, and talking to tech workers in the area gave me the impression it’s a mix of slacker culture and hype chasing. After moving back here, tech talent seems like a game of telephone, and we’re several jumps past the original.
When I heard CrowdStrike was here, it just kinda made sense
When I heard CrowdStrike was here, it just kinda made sense
I would add Kaseya VSA Ransomware attack in 2021 to that list.
On the plus side of this disaster, I am holding out some pico-sized hope that maybe organizations will rethink kernel level access. No, random gaming company, you are not good enough to write kernel level anti cheat software.
I can't imagine gaming software being affected at all, unless MS does a ton of cracking down (and would still probably give hooks for gaming since they have gaming companies in their umbrella).
No corporate org is gonna bat an eye at Riot's anti-cheat practices, because they aren't installing LoL on their line of business machines anyway.
No corporate org is gonna bat an eye at Riot's anti-cheat practices, because they aren't installing LoL on their line of business machines anyway.
Until the malware bring their own compromised signed anti cheat driver on their own, like what happened with Genshin Impact anti cheat mhyprot2
Right, MS just paid $75e9 for a company whose main products are competitive multiplayer games. They are never going to be incentivized to compromise that sector by limiting what anti-cheat they can do.
> because they aren't installing LoL on their line of business machines anyway
But if their business is incompatible with strict software whitelisting, their employees might...
But if their business is incompatible with strict software whitelisting, their employees might...
The problem you’re fighting is cheat customers who go “random kernel-level driver? no problem!”
imo anti-cheat should mostly be server-side behavior based
How are you going to catch wallhackers that aren't blatantly obvious?
Minimize the possible advantage by not sending the client other players' positions until absolutely necessary (either the client can see the other player, or there's a movement the client could make that would reveal the other player before receiving the next packet), and eliminate the cheaters you can with server-side behavior analysis and regular less-invasive client-side anticheat.
Ultimately even games with kernel anticheat have cheating issues; at some point you have to accept that you cannot stop 100.0% of cheaters. The solution to someone making an aimbot using a physically separate device (reading monitor output, giving mouse input) cannot be to require keys to the player's house.
Ultimately even games with kernel anticheat have cheating issues; at some point you have to accept that you cannot stop 100.0% of cheaters. The solution to someone making an aimbot using a physically separate device (reading monitor output, giving mouse input) cannot be to require keys to the player's house.
> not sending the client other players' positions until absolutely necessary (either the client can see the other player, or there's a movement the client could make that would reveal the other player before receiving the next packet)
I think the problem with this is sounds like footsteps or weapons being fired that need to be positional.
Which makes me wonder if you could get away with mixing these sounds server-side and then streaming them to the client to avoid sending positions. Probably infeasible in practice due to latency and game server performance, but fun to think about.
I think the problem with this is sounds like footsteps or weapons being fired that need to be positional.
Which makes me wonder if you could get away with mixing these sounds server-side and then streaming them to the client to avoid sending positions. Probably infeasible in practice due to latency and game server performance, but fun to think about.
To whatever extent the sound is intended to only give a general direction, I'd say quantize the angle and volume of the sound before it's sent such that cheaters also only get that same vague direction. Obviously don't send inaudible/essentially-inaudible sounds to the client at all.
They need to just make CPU's, GPU's, and memory modules with hardware level anti-cheat. Totally optional purchase, but grants you access to very-difficult-to-cheat-in servers.
That sort of already exists - I believe a small number of games demand that you have Secure Boot enabled, meaning you should only have a Microsoft-approved kernel and drivers running. And then the anticheat is itself probably kernel level, so can see anything in userspace
It may still be possible to get round this by using your own machine owner key or using PreLoader/shim [1] to sign a hacked Windows kernel
[1] https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Unified_Extensible_Firmware...
It may still be possible to get round this by using your own machine owner key or using PreLoader/shim [1] to sign a hacked Windows kernel
[1] https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Unified_Extensible_Firmware...
Another way to get around it is reading the memory directly with direct memory access (DMA) hardware.
I guess you’ve just invented an Xbox/PlayStation.
The only reason wallhacking is possible in the first place is a server sending a client information on a competitor that the client should not know about.
IE the server sends locations and details about all players to your client, even if you are in the spawn room and can't see anyone else and your client has to hide those details from you. It is then trivial to just pull those details out of memory.
The solution forever has been to just not send clients information they shouldn't have. My copy of CS:GO should not know about a terrorist on the other side of the map. The code to evaluate that literally already exists, since the client will answer that question when it goes to render visuals and sound. They just choose to not do that testing server side.
Aimbotting however is probably impossible to stop. Your client has to know where the model for an enemy is to render it, so you know where the hitbox roughly should be, and most games send your client the hitbox info directly so it can do predict whether you hit them. I don't think you can do it behaviorally either.
IE the server sends locations and details about all players to your client, even if you are in the spawn room and can't see anyone else and your client has to hide those details from you. It is then trivial to just pull those details out of memory.
The solution forever has been to just not send clients information they shouldn't have. My copy of CS:GO should not know about a terrorist on the other side of the map. The code to evaluate that literally already exists, since the client will answer that question when it goes to render visuals and sound. They just choose to not do that testing server side.
Aimbotting however is probably impossible to stop. Your client has to know where the model for an enemy is to render it, so you know where the hitbox roughly should be, and most games send your client the hitbox info directly so it can do predict whether you hit them. I don't think you can do it behaviorally either.
To some extent though- the games do need information about players that are behind walls.
In CSGO/CS2, even if you can’t see the player you can hear their footsteps or them reloading, etc. the sound is very positional. Plus, you can shoot through some thin walls at these players. Even if they can’t be seen.
I don’t believe server side anti cheat can truly be effective against some cheats. But also Vanguard is trash and makes my computer bluescreen. I’ve stopped playing league entirely because of it.
I don’t believe server side anti cheat can truly be effective against some cheats. But also Vanguard is trash and makes my computer bluescreen. I’ve stopped playing league entirely because of it.
You don't happen to have used some means to install win 11 on an unsupported device have you? People bypassing the windows install requirements and then vanguard making false assumptions have been a source of issues.
I’m on windows 10. Vanguard always complains about some driver that it prevents from running. (Might be fan control I think? Hard to figure out) And in addition to that it’s caused several blue screens for me. (Kernel access violations I think?) The blue screens say the error was in vgk.sys which is vanguard.
It’s not at all consistent, but when it happens it’s as I’m getting into a game, so I miss part of a match for it every time.
Ah that's unfortunate. Have you messaged riot support? I've heard they're quite earnest in trying to fix these bugs in light of the backlash
Nit, but surely hit detection happens on the server? Shooting wildly should always register a hit, regardless of what the client knows.
> The only reason wallhacking is possible in the first place is a server sending a client information on a competitor that the client should not know about.
Some information is required to cover the network and server delays.
The client predicts what things should look like and then corrects to what they actually are if there is a discrepancy with the server. You cannot get around this short of going back to in-person LAN games.
Some information is required to cover the network and server delays.
The client predicts what things should look like and then corrects to what they actually are if there is a discrepancy with the server. You cannot get around this short of going back to in-person LAN games.
You may have players complain that when they walk around a corner, the enemy who they should be able to see immediately is briefly invisible.
So the server must render the 3d world from each players perspective to do these tests? Sounds ridiculously expensive.
> So the server must render the 3d world from each players perspective to do these tests?
Just some raycasts through the geometry should be sufficient, which the server is already doing (albeit on likely-simplified collision meshes) constantly.
If you really do have a scenario where occlusion noticeably depends on more of the rendering pipeline (a window that switches between opaque and transparent based on a GPU shader?) you could just treat it as always transparent for occlusion checking and accept the tiny loss that wallhackers will be able to see through it, or add code to simulate that server-side and change the occlusion geometry accordingly.
Just some raycasts through the geometry should be sufficient, which the server is already doing (albeit on likely-simplified collision meshes) constantly.
If you really do have a scenario where occlusion noticeably depends on more of the rendering pipeline (a window that switches between opaque and transparent based on a GPU shader?) you could just treat it as always transparent for occlusion checking and accept the tiny loss that wallhackers will be able to see through it, or add code to simulate that server-side and change the occlusion geometry accordingly.
Server side hit detection is nowhere near as complex as occlusion, you need to make sure you account for latency or you get people popping into existence after they round the corner.
Here is one for CS:GO, server occlusion geometry must be made separately as auto generating from map is another hard problem.
Not "just some raycasts" otherwise everyone would be doing it:
https://github.com/87andrewh/CornerCullingSourceEngine
Here is one for CS:GO, server occlusion geometry must be made separately as auto generating from map is another hard problem.
Not "just some raycasts" otherwise everyone would be doing it:
https://github.com/87andrewh/CornerCullingSourceEngine
> Not "just some recast" otherwise everyone would be doing it:
Only needing raycasts through the geometry was in response to the idea that the server would need to "render the 3d world from each players perspective to do these tests". I don't intend to claim that it's as a whole an easy engineering problem, but rather that the tests don't need to involve much/any of the rendering pipeline.
Only needing raycasts through the geometry was in response to the idea that the server would need to "render the 3d world from each players perspective to do these tests". I don't intend to claim that it's as a whole an easy engineering problem, but rather that the tests don't need to involve much/any of the rendering pipeline.
Of course you can. You can measure telemetry like where the aimpoint is on a hitbox. Is it centered or at least more accurate than your globabl population? Hacker, ban. How about time to shoot after hitting target? Are they shooting instantly, is the delay truly random? If not then banned. You can effectively force the hacking tools to only be about as good as a human player, at which point it hardly matters whether you have hackers or not.
Of course, no one handles hacking like this because its cheaper to just ship fast and early and never maintain your servers. Not even valve cares about their games and they are the most benevolent company in the industry.
Of course, no one handles hacking like this because its cheaper to just ship fast and early and never maintain your servers. Not even valve cares about their games and they are the most benevolent company in the industry.
Valve does not have kernel level anticheat. Faceit does. Most high ranked players prefer to play on Faceit because of the amount of cheaters in normal CS2 matchmaking.
isn't vac kernel level?
VAC is not kernel level. Valorant’s Vanguard is kernel level - it runs at all times and if you exit it out, you must reboot your computer to play Valorant
Aside from aimbots, there's plenty of abusable legitimate information exposed to the client.
E.g. For CS:GO, the volume of footsteps and gunshots vary by distance so you could use them to triangulate an enemy's position.
E.g. For CS:GO, the volume of footsteps and gunshots vary by distance so you could use them to triangulate an enemy's position.
You have no idea what you're talking about. Even mediocre FPS players use positional sound as a huge cue for how to react, which means the client is going to know the positions of every player and non-player entity in a medium range. That's a _huge_ advantage to any hacked client.
Even if the FPS had no sound, an aimbot-free hacked client that knows the positions of only the players that you can see would still provide a significant benefit because a high fidelity radar and pointers can be placed on the screen. No one can sneak up on you. And no you can't base it on which way the player is looking because you can turn around faster than network latency.
Can you limit the impact of hacked clients? Sure, people might not be able to do egregious stuff like X-ray your position from across the map. Locally, though, game clients need a large amount of information to provide a good experience.
Even if the FPS had no sound, an aimbot-free hacked client that knows the positions of only the players that you can see would still provide a significant benefit because a high fidelity radar and pointers can be placed on the screen. No one can sneak up on you. And no you can't base it on which way the player is looking because you can turn around faster than network latency.
Can you limit the impact of hacked clients? Sure, people might not be able to do egregious stuff like X-ray your position from across the map. Locally, though, game clients need a large amount of information to provide a good experience.
Reading this thread it's impressive how little people know about competitive gaming while simultaneously knowing how to fix the cheating issues.
Standalone servers. Run your own then you can ban anyone you like, or better still only allow anyone you like.
Nothing like sourcemodded server! Good old days!
You may not, and that's ok.
It's not ok for people playing those games. They'll quit playing that game and go to one with invasive client-side anti-cheat instead.
The incentives and priorities are very different for people who want to play fair games than they are for people who want to maximize their own freedom.
The incentives and priorities are very different for people who want to play fair games than they are for people who want to maximize their own freedom.
This is a solved issue already. Vote kicks or server admin intervention. Aimbotting was never an issue for the old primitive fps games I would play because admins could spectate and see you are aimbotting.
A modern game need only telemetry that captures what a spectating admin picks up, rather than active surveillance.
Hackers are only a problem when servers are left unmoderated and players can’t vote kick.
A modern game need only telemetry that captures what a spectating admin picks up, rather than active surveillance.
Hackers are only a problem when servers are left unmoderated and players can’t vote kick.
That stopped being a solution when winning online started mattering. There are real money prizes for online game tournaments. Weekly events can have hundreds of dollars in their prize pools. Big events can have thousands.
Suddenly vote kicking had to go, because it was abused. Not in the tournaments themselves, but in open ranked play which serves as qualifiers. An active game can rack up thousands of hours of gameplay per day, far beyond the ability of competent admins to validate. Especially because cheating is often subtle. An expert can spend more than real time looking for subtle patterns that automated tools haven't been built to detect.
Games aren't between you and your 25 buddies for bragging rights anymore. They're between you and 50k other active players for cash prizes. The world has changed. Anti-cheat technology followed that change.
Suddenly vote kicking had to go, because it was abused. Not in the tournaments themselves, but in open ranked play which serves as qualifiers. An active game can rack up thousands of hours of gameplay per day, far beyond the ability of competent admins to validate. Especially because cheating is often subtle. An expert can spend more than real time looking for subtle patterns that automated tools haven't been built to detect.
Games aren't between you and your 25 buddies for bragging rights anymore. They're between you and 50k other active players for cash prizes. The world has changed. Anti-cheat technology followed that change.
You can't have vote kicks/server admins/hosted servers with competitive ranked ladders. If your solution is "don't have competitive ranked ladders" then you are just telling the majority of people who even care about anti-cheat to just not play their preferred game mode.
Why can’t you have that with competitive ladders? Presumably theres still mechanisms to kick people in game if they start for example spewing racist messages in the game. What difference is it to kick someone one way or another? Not to mention plenty of games with vote kick mechanisms did have strong competitive scenes.
If you only allow users to kick their teammates for suspected cheating, they will have little incentive to do so.
If you allow users to kick opponents for cheating, they will have an incentive to kick legitimate players who are playing well.
You cannot have a global competitive ladder if the ladder is split into a ton of different admin-run servers. overwatch had a version of this problem where people would queue into the Australia region during low traffic times to boost their rank.
If you allow users to kick opponents for cheating, they will have an incentive to kick legitimate players who are playing well.
You cannot have a global competitive ladder if the ladder is split into a ton of different admin-run servers. overwatch had a version of this problem where people would queue into the Australia region during low traffic times to boost their rank.
I play one of those games that doesn’t strongly enforce anti-cheating, and I agree with you that it’s a huge detraction compared to games with strong anti-cheat.
But I strongly disagree about the use of invasive client-side anti-cheat. Server-side anti-cheat can reduce the number of cheaters to an acceptably low level.
See for example how lichess detects and aids in detection of cheaters: https://github.com/clarkerubber/irwin
And chess is a game where I feel like it would be relatively hard to detect cheating. An algorithm looking at games with actors moving in 3D space and responding to relative positions and actions of multiple other actors should have a great many more ways to detect cheating over the course of many games.
But I strongly disagree about the use of invasive client-side anti-cheat. Server-side anti-cheat can reduce the number of cheaters to an acceptably low level.
See for example how lichess detects and aids in detection of cheaters: https://github.com/clarkerubber/irwin
And chess is a game where I feel like it would be relatively hard to detect cheating. An algorithm looking at games with actors moving in 3D space and responding to relative positions and actions of multiple other actors should have a great many more ways to detect cheating over the course of many games.
And frankly, I think the incentive structure has nothing to do with whether tournaments are happening with money on the line, and a great deal more whether the company has the cash and nothing better to do.
Anti-cheat beyond a very basic level is nothing to these companies except a funnel optimization to extract the maximum lifetime value out of the player base. Only the most successful games will ever have the money or reach the technical capability to support this. Nobody making these decisions is doing it for player welfare.
Anti-cheat beyond a very basic level is nothing to these companies except a funnel optimization to extract the maximum lifetime value out of the player base. Only the most successful games will ever have the money or reach the technical capability to support this. Nobody making these decisions is doing it for player welfare.
Stop thinking about trying to catch wallhackers. Instead, make wallhacking impossible. Do that by fixing the server to, instead of sending all player positions to everyone, only send player positions to clients that they have an unobstructed view of.
Did their hitbox clip through the wall? Yes? Banned. You could do it with telemetry.
You're confusing wallhacking with noclipping. Wallhacking is being able to see through walls, like drawing an outline around all characters that renders with highest z-order, or making wall textures transparent.
It does not result in any server-side-detectable difference in behavior other than the hacker seemingly being more aware of their surroundings than they should, which can be hard to determine for sure. Depending on how the hack is done, it may not be detectable by the client either, eg by intercepting the GPU driver calls to render the outlines or switch the wall textures.
It does not result in any server-side-detectable difference in behavior other than the hacker seemingly being more aware of their surroundings than they should, which can be hard to determine for sure. Depending on how the hack is done, it may not be detectable by the client either, eg by intercepting the GPU driver calls to render the outlines or switch the wall textures.
if wall between client and another client == true; do dont render other client; fi
Unless I’m mistaken on macOS at least kernel access is just not possible, so at least there’s that.
And Valorant, CS2, CoD dont run on macOS due to anti cheat :)
this seems like the second or third test file any qa person would have tried, after an empty file and maybe a minimal valid file. the level of pervasive incompetence implied here is staggering
in a market where companies compete by impressing nontechnical upper management with presentations, it should be no surprise that technically competent companies have no advantage over incompetent ones
i recently read through the craig wright decision https://www.judiciary.uk/judgments/copa-v-wright/ (the guy who fraudulently claimed to be satoshi nakamoto) and he lacked even the most basic technical competence in the fields where he was supposedly a world-class specialist (decompiling malware to c); he didn't know what 'unsigned' meant when questioned on the witness stand. he'd been doing infosec work for big companies going back to the 90s. he'd apparently been tricking people with technobabble and rigged demos and forged documents for his entire career
george kurtz, ceo and founder of crowdstrike, was the cto of mcafee when they did the exact same thing 14 years ago: https://old.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/1e78l0g/can_crowd... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Kurtz
crowdstrike itself caused the same problem on debian stable three months ago: https://old.reddit.com/r/debian/comments/1c8db7l/linuximage6...
it's horrifying that pci compliance regulations have injected crowdstrike (and antivirus) into virtually every aspect of today's it infrastructure
in a market where companies compete by impressing nontechnical upper management with presentations, it should be no surprise that technically competent companies have no advantage over incompetent ones
i recently read through the craig wright decision https://www.judiciary.uk/judgments/copa-v-wright/ (the guy who fraudulently claimed to be satoshi nakamoto) and he lacked even the most basic technical competence in the fields where he was supposedly a world-class specialist (decompiling malware to c); he didn't know what 'unsigned' meant when questioned on the witness stand. he'd been doing infosec work for big companies going back to the 90s. he'd apparently been tricking people with technobabble and rigged demos and forged documents for his entire career
george kurtz, ceo and founder of crowdstrike, was the cto of mcafee when they did the exact same thing 14 years ago: https://old.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/1e78l0g/can_crowd... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Kurtz
crowdstrike itself caused the same problem on debian stable three months ago: https://old.reddit.com/r/debian/comments/1c8db7l/linuximage6...
it's horrifying that pci compliance regulations have injected crowdstrike (and antivirus) into virtually every aspect of today's it infrastructure
Also ironic that the compliance ended up introducing the biggest vulnerability as a massive single point of failure.
But that's government regulation for you.
But that's government regulation for you.
pci-dss is not a government agency but it might as well be; it's a collusion between visa, mastercard, american express, discover, and jcb to prevent them from having different data security standards (and therefore being able to compete on security)
You mean “and therefore requiring businesses that take credit cards to enforce the union of all the restrictions imposed by all six companies (which might not even be possible—the restrictions might be contradictory) in order to accept all six types of cards”
you could imagine that if visa and mastercard had incompatible restrictions, such that merchants had to choose which one to accept, people would gradually shift to the card that got their money stolen less often, or whose (merchants') websites worked more reliably
since, instead, every business that uses credit cards at all is required to use the same set of counterproductive 'security' policies that make them more vulnerable than before, there is no way for market reality to ground these 'security' policies in real-world security. that's exactly the same problem that happens with government regulation
since, instead, every business that uses credit cards at all is required to use the same set of counterproductive 'security' policies that make them more vulnerable than before, there is no way for market reality to ground these 'security' policies in real-world security. that's exactly the same problem that happens with government regulation
I've seen several merchants stop using amex because of restrictions. Admittedly those restrictions were very much in the form of excessive fees and nobody would have cared about their customer's stolen money.
Anyway, there isn't total solidarity within the credit card cartel.
Anyway, there isn't total solidarity within the credit card cartel.
The thing is that even today, where it's "easy", still nearly nobody is writing code to directly support the six different credit card types. Instead, businesses mostly rely on payment processors.
In a world where it's impossible to support all six card types directly with one codebase, one of the key dimensions on which payment processors would compete for mindshare, would be abstracting away those difficulties in supporting all six card types, enabling the business that uses them to accept more cards, more easily, than if the business went with some rival payment-processor. This would be a headline feature, however hard it is for them to accomplish internally.
The only difference from today, would be that now, due to those potentially-conflicting requirements, the payment processors would have to build six entirely-distinct payment backends that don't share a data model. (Basically treating each credit card platform's cards as different "payment rails", as distinctive from one-another as credit card payment rails today are from debit card payment rails.)
And then, of course, the payment processors themselves would come up with guidelines for handling those six different data warehouses and associated infrastructure, separate/downstream from the guidelines enforced upon each data warehouse by the associated credit platform... and those payment-processor-produced guidelines, might look again quite a lot like PCI-DSS :P
In a world where it's impossible to support all six card types directly with one codebase, one of the key dimensions on which payment processors would compete for mindshare, would be abstracting away those difficulties in supporting all six card types, enabling the business that uses them to accept more cards, more easily, than if the business went with some rival payment-processor. This would be a headline feature, however hard it is for them to accomplish internally.
The only difference from today, would be that now, due to those potentially-conflicting requirements, the payment processors would have to build six entirely-distinct payment backends that don't share a data model. (Basically treating each credit card platform's cards as different "payment rails", as distinctive from one-another as credit card payment rails today are from debit card payment rails.)
And then, of course, the payment processors themselves would come up with guidelines for handling those six different data warehouses and associated infrastructure, separate/downstream from the guidelines enforced upon each data warehouse by the associated credit platform... and those payment-processor-produced guidelines, might look again quite a lot like PCI-DSS :P
It's definitely ironic, and compatible with the security engineering world joke that the most secure system is one that cannot be accessed or used at all.
I suppose one way to "stop breaches" is to shut down every host entirely.
In the military world, there is a concept of an "Alpha Strike" which generally relates to a fast-enough and strong-enough first-strike that is sufficient to disable the adversary's ability to respond or fight back (e.g. taking down an entire fleet at once). Perhaps people that have been burned by this event will start calling it a Crowdstrike.
I suppose one way to "stop breaches" is to shut down every host entirely.
In the military world, there is a concept of an "Alpha Strike" which generally relates to a fast-enough and strong-enough first-strike that is sufficient to disable the adversary's ability to respond or fight back (e.g. taking down an entire fleet at once). Perhaps people that have been burned by this event will start calling it a Crowdstrike.
What’s frustrating is that after falsely attributing pci to government regulation and being corrected, you’re probably not going to re-examine the thought process that led you to that false belief.
It seems government IT systems in general faired pretty well the last 12 hrs, but loads of large private companies were effectively taken offline, so there's that.
this had nothing to do with government regulation, thank private sector insurance companies.
Pci-dss is a method for card companies to allay the risk onto the merchant and away from the card companies - just like insurance.
> But that's government regulation for you.
You misspelled “private sector”. Use of endpoint monitoring software is coming out of private auditing companies driven by things like PCI or insurers’ requirements – almost nobody wants to pay for highly-skilled security people so they’re outsourcing it to the big auditing companies and checklists so that if they get sued they can say they were following industry practices and the audit firms okayed it.
You misspelled “private sector”. Use of endpoint monitoring software is coming out of private auditing companies driven by things like PCI or insurers’ requirements – almost nobody wants to pay for highly-skilled security people so they’re outsourcing it to the big auditing companies and checklists so that if they get sued they can say they were following industry practices and the audit firms okayed it.
I think the worst part of the incident is that state actors now have a clear blueprint for a large scale infrastructure attack.
I can think of a lot better things to put in a kernel-level driver installed on every critical computer ever than a bunch of 0s.
> george kurtz, ceo and founder of crowdstrike, was the cto of mcafee when they did the exact same thing 14 years ago: https://old.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/1e78l0g/can_crowd...
I find it amusing that the people commenting on that link are offended this called a "Microsoft " outage, when it is "Crowdstrike's fault".
This is just as much a Microsoft failure.
This is even more, another industry failure
How many times does this have to happen before we get some industry reform that lets us do our jobs and build the secure reliable systems we have spent seven decades researching?
1988 all over again again again
I find it amusing that the people commenting on that link are offended this called a "Microsoft " outage, when it is "Crowdstrike's fault".
This is just as much a Microsoft failure.
This is even more, another industry failure
How many times does this have to happen before we get some industry reform that lets us do our jobs and build the secure reliable systems we have spent seven decades researching?
1988 all over again again again
It's simple: the failure is not specific to the OS.
Crowdstrike runs on MacOS and Linux workstations too. And it's just as dangerous there; the big thread has stories of Crowdstrike breaking Linux systems in the past months.
Crowdstrike isn't needed by/for Windows, it's mandated by corporate and government bureaucracies, where it serves as a tool of employee control and a compliance checkbox to check.
That's why it makes no sense to blame Microsoft. If the world run on Linux, ceteris paribus, Crowdstrike would be on those machines too, and would fuck them up just as bad globally.
Crowdstrike runs on MacOS and Linux workstations too. And it's just as dangerous there; the big thread has stories of Crowdstrike breaking Linux systems in the past months.
Crowdstrike isn't needed by/for Windows, it's mandated by corporate and government bureaucracies, where it serves as a tool of employee control and a compliance checkbox to check.
That's why it makes no sense to blame Microsoft. If the world run on Linux, ceteris paribus, Crowdstrike would be on those machines too, and would fuck them up just as bad globally.
>Crowdstrike runs on MacOS and Linux workstations too.
This is what chills me to the bone, there's loads of these installations worldwide on heterogeneous OSs but with very little oversight of the code. Companies have basically rolled over and stated, 'OK, we trust you'
I'm not usually a fan of strident calls to open source everything, but the source code at least for the channel file parser on all OSs should now be made public so that we can have an oversight of what so many have placed their trust in.
This is what chills me to the bone, there's loads of these installations worldwide on heterogeneous OSs but with very little oversight of the code. Companies have basically rolled over and stated, 'OK, we trust you'
I'm not usually a fan of strident calls to open source everything, but the source code at least for the channel file parser on all OSs should now be made public so that we can have an oversight of what so many have placed their trust in.
> That's why it makes no sense to blame Microsoft. If the world run on Linux, ceteris paribus, Crowdstrike would be on those machines too, and would fuck them up just as bad globally.
CrowdStrike _is_ running on a massive number of Linux servers/endpoints, with the same kind of auto-update policies.
CrowdStrike _is_ running on a massive number of Linux servers/endpoints, with the same kind of auto-update policies.
the reforms you're hoping for are not going to happen until the countries with bad infosec get conquered by the countries with good infosec. that is going to be much worse than you can possibly imagine
it's not microsoft's fault at all; crowdstrike caused the same problem on debian systems three months ago. the only way it could be microsoft's fault is if letting users install kernel drivers is microsoft's fault
it's not microsoft's fault at all; crowdstrike caused the same problem on debian systems three months ago. the only way it could be microsoft's fault is if letting users install kernel drivers is microsoft's fault
> he lacked even the most basic technical competence in the fields where he was supposedly a world-class specialist
Pretty ironic Craig also suggests to put digital certificates on the blockchain instead of them issued by a computer or a cluster of computers, in one place, which makes them a target. A peer to peer network is much more resilient to attacks.
Was the problem, or a part of the problem, that the root certificate of all computers was replaced by CrowdStrike? I didn't follow that part closely. If it was, then certificates registered on the blockchain might be a solution.
I'm totally not an expert in cryptography, but that seems plausible.
As a side note, it is only when i heard Craig's Wright explanation of the blockchain that the bitcoin whitepaper started making a lot of sense. He may not be the greatest of coders, but are mathematicians useless in security?
Pretty ironic Craig also suggests to put digital certificates on the blockchain instead of them issued by a computer or a cluster of computers, in one place, which makes them a target. A peer to peer network is much more resilient to attacks.
Was the problem, or a part of the problem, that the root certificate of all computers was replaced by CrowdStrike? I didn't follow that part closely. If it was, then certificates registered on the blockchain might be a solution.
I'm totally not an expert in cryptography, but that seems plausible.
As a side note, it is only when i heard Craig's Wright explanation of the blockchain that the bitcoin whitepaper started making a lot of sense. He may not be the greatest of coders, but are mathematicians useless in security?
none of your comment makes any sense. possibly it was generated by a large language model with no understanding of what is being talked about
is it not the problem, that CrowdStrike takes hold of the root certificate authority of a computer? There is an update, and after that what is causing the problem?
If it is the certificate, that could be solved in the future by putting the certificates on the blockchain. If it is just incompetent management, then i don't see a great deal of technical solutions.
Craig Wright, claims to be a mathematician not a stellar coder.
If it is the certificate, that could be solved in the future by putting the certificates on the blockchain. If it is just incompetent management, then i don't see a great deal of technical solutions.
Craig Wright, claims to be a mathematician not a stellar coder.
that comment does make some sense, but it is still wrong from beginning to end; everything it says is close to the opposite of the truth
I don't mean to sound conspiratorial, but it's a little early to rule out malfeasance just because of Hanlon's Razor just yet. Most fuckups are not on a ridonkulous global scale. This is looking like the biggest one to date, the Y2K that wasn't.
We as a society need to start punishing incompetence the same way we punish malice.
Of course, we also need to first start punishing individuals for intentionally causing harm through their decisions even if the harm was caused indirectly through other people. Power allows people to distance themselves from the act. Distance should not affect the punishment.
Of course, we also need to first start punishing individuals for intentionally causing harm through their decisions even if the harm was caused indirectly through other people. Power allows people to distance themselves from the act. Distance should not affect the punishment.
> Of course, we also need to first start punishing individuals for intentionally causing harm through their decisions even if the harm was caused indirectly through other people.
Legal teams are way ahead of you here, by design. They’ve learned to factor out responsibility in such a diffuse manner the “indirectly” term loses nearly all its power the closer one gets to executive ranks and is a fig leaf when you reach C-levels and BoD levels. We couldn’t feasibly operate behemoth corporations otherwise in litigious environments.
I personally suspect we cannot enshrine earnestness and character as metrics and KPI’s, even indirectly. From personal experience selling into many client organizations and being able to watch them make some sausage, this is where leadership over managing becomes a key distinction, and organizational culture over a long period measured in generations of decisions and actions implemented by a group with mean workforce tenure measured in decades becomes one of the few reliable signals. Would love to hear others’ experiences and observations.
Legal teams are way ahead of you here, by design. They’ve learned to factor out responsibility in such a diffuse manner the “indirectly” term loses nearly all its power the closer one gets to executive ranks and is a fig leaf when you reach C-levels and BoD levels. We couldn’t feasibly operate behemoth corporations otherwise in litigious environments.
I personally suspect we cannot enshrine earnestness and character as metrics and KPI’s, even indirectly. From personal experience selling into many client organizations and being able to watch them make some sausage, this is where leadership over managing becomes a key distinction, and organizational culture over a long period measured in generations of decisions and actions implemented by a group with mean workforce tenure measured in decades becomes one of the few reliable signals. Would love to hear others’ experiences and observations.
[deleted]
So which individual engineer are you locking up and telling their kids that they don't get to see their mommy or daddy again?
> intentionally causing harm
Maybe we need to criminalize groundless accusations too.
> intentionally causing harm
Maybe we need to criminalize groundless accusations too.
Don't pretend you don't understand.
Failures like this aren't an individual programmer's responsibility. I can guarantee you programmers have been asking to implement staggered releases and management shut them down. In fact another poster in this thread showed that even customers asked for that and were rejected with 50 pages of corporate BS which basically amounted to "we don't wanna".
Same goes for other safety mechanisms like testing.
> Maybe we need to criminalize groundless accusations too.
I never accused them of intentionally causing harm. Please read my comment more carefully. I said what i said because in the current environment, even doing this intentionally would not lead to sufficient punishment to top management.
Failures like this aren't an individual programmer's responsibility. I can guarantee you programmers have been asking to implement staggered releases and management shut them down. In fact another poster in this thread showed that even customers asked for that and were rejected with 50 pages of corporate BS which basically amounted to "we don't wanna".
Same goes for other safety mechanisms like testing.
> Maybe we need to criminalize groundless accusations too.
I never accused them of intentionally causing harm. Please read my comment more carefully. I said what i said because in the current environment, even doing this intentionally would not lead to sufficient punishment to top management.
I hear it was that Ron guy's fault
> We as a society need to start punishing incompetence the same way we punish malice.
Yes
But competence is marketed
The trade names like "Crowdstrike" and "Microsoft "
Yes
But competence is marketed
The trade names like "Crowdstrike" and "Microsoft "
I have flagged this because it is wrong, and there is no other way to kick it off the front page.
Finding a file full of zeroes on a broken computer does not mean it was shipped as all zeroes!
https://x.com/craiu/status/1814339965347610863
https://x.com/cyb3rops/status/1814329155833516492
Finding a file full of zeroes on a broken computer does not mean it was shipped as all zeroes!
https://x.com/craiu/status/1814339965347610863
https://x.com/cyb3rops/status/1814329155833516492
CrowdStrike does this trick where it replaces the file (being transferred over a network socket) with zeroes if it matches the malware signature. Assuming that these are the malware signature files themselves, a match wouldn't be surprising.
This actually makes the most sense, and would help explain how the error didn't occur during testing (in good faith, I assume it was tested).
In testing, the dev may have worked from their primary to deploy the update to a series of secondary drives, then sequential performed a test boot from each secondary drive configured for each supported OS version. A shortcut/quick way to test that would've bypassed how their product updates in customer environments, also bypassing checks their software may have performed (in this case, overwriting their own file's contents).
In testing, the dev may have worked from their primary to deploy the update to a series of secondary drives, then sequential performed a test boot from each secondary drive configured for each supported OS version. A shortcut/quick way to test that would've bypassed how their product updates in customer environments, also bypassing checks their software may have performed (in this case, overwriting their own file's contents).
CrowStrike foot gunning itself would be amusing, if expected.
Far and away the most entertaining of the possible root causes.
Ah thanks. I've made the title questionable now.
Finally confirmed by CrowdStrike themselves:
https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/tech-analysis-channel-file-...
https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/tech-analysis-channel-file-...
Yes, this fits in with what I heard on the grapevine about this bug from a friend who knows someone working for Crowdstrike. The bug had been sitting there in the kernel driver for years before being triggered by this flawed data, which actually was added in a post-processing step of the configuration update - after it had been tested but before being copied to their update servers for clients to obtain.
Apparently, Crowdstrike's test setup was fine for this configuration data itself, but they didn't catch it before it was sent out in production, as they were testing the wrong thing. Hopefully they own up to this, and explain what they're going to do to prevent another global-impact process failure, in whatever post-mortem writeup they may release.
Apparently, Crowdstrike's test setup was fine for this configuration data itself, but they didn't catch it before it was sent out in production, as they were testing the wrong thing. Hopefully they own up to this, and explain what they're going to do to prevent another global-impact process failure, in whatever post-mortem writeup they may release.
[flagged]
"We need to ship this by Friday. Just add a quick post-processing step, and we'll fix it next week properly" - how these things tend to happen.
In my first engineering job ever, I worked with this snarky boss who was mean to everyone and just said NO every time to everything. She also had a red line: NO RELEASES ON THE LAST DAY OF THE WEEK. I couldn't understand why. Now, 10 years later, I understand I just had the best boss ever. I miss you, Vik.
I still have a 10-year old screenshot from a colleague breaking production on a Friday afternoon and posting "happy weekend everyone!" just as the errors from production started to flood in on the same chat. And he really did just fuck off leaving us to mop up the hurricane of piss he unleashed.
He was not my favourite colleague.
He was not my favourite colleague.
There’s someone from a company I worked at a few years ago that pumped out some trash on the last week before their two month sabbatical (or three?). I remember how pissed I was seeing the username in the commit because I recognized it from their “see you in a few months” email lmao
"I heard on the grapevine from a friend who knows someone working for Crowdstrike" is perhaps not the most reliable source of information, due to the game of telephone effect if nothing else.
And post-processing can mean many things. Could be something relatively simple such as "testing passed, so lets mark the file with a version number and release it".
And post-processing can mean many things. Could be something relatively simple such as "testing passed, so lets mark the file with a version number and release it".
> Could be something relatively simple such as "testing passed, so lets mark the file with a version number and release it".
I'd argue you shouldn't even do that. When I've been building CI systems pushing stuff to the customer in the past we've always been automatically versioning everything, and the version that's in the artifact you've found to be good is just the one you're going to be releasing.
I'd argue you shouldn't even do that. When I've been building CI systems pushing stuff to the customer in the past we've always been automatically versioning everything, and the version that's in the artifact you've found to be good is just the one you're going to be releasing.
Hmm, I post-process autonomous vehicle logs probably daily.
Why is this stupid? It’s pretty useful to see a graph of coolant temp vs ambient temp vs motor speed vs roll/pitch.
I must be especially stupid I suppose. Nuts.
Why is this stupid? It’s pretty useful to see a graph of coolant temp vs ambient temp vs motor speed vs roll/pitch.
I must be especially stupid I suppose. Nuts.
That is not remotely what was meant..
Perhaps word choice and sentence structure are important then.
This is comparable to modifying the system under test after it has been validated and not simply looking at recorded data.
At last an explanation that makes a bit of sense to me.
>Hopefully they own up to this, and explain what they're going to do to prevent another global-impact process failure
They probably needn't bother, every competent sysadmin from Greenland to New Zealand is probably disabling the autoupdate feature right now, firewalling it off and hatching a plan to get the product off their server estate ASAP.
Marketing budgets for competing product are going to get a bump this quarter probably.
>Hopefully they own up to this, and explain what they're going to do to prevent another global-impact process failure
They probably needn't bother, every competent sysadmin from Greenland to New Zealand is probably disabling the autoupdate feature right now, firewalling it off and hatching a plan to get the product off their server estate ASAP.
Marketing budgets for competing product are going to get a bump this quarter probably.
I think Crowdstrike is due for more than just "owning up to it". I sincerely hope for serious investigation, fines and legal pursuits despite having "limited liabilities" in their agreements.
Seriously, I don't even know how to do the math on the amount of damage this caused (not including the TIME wasted for businesses as well as ordinary people, for instance those taking flights)
There has to be consequences for this kind of negligence
Seriously, I don't even know how to do the math on the amount of damage this caused (not including the TIME wasted for businesses as well as ordinary people, for instance those taking flights)
There has to be consequences for this kind of negligence
There's a claim over on Mastodon from Kevin Beaumont that the file is different on every customer he´s received the file from.
https://cyberplace.social/@GossiTheDog/112812454405913406
(scroll down a little)
https://cyberplace.social/@GossiTheDog/112812454405913406
(scroll down a little)
I thought windows required all kernel modules to be signed..? If there are multiple corrupt copies, rather than just some test escape, how could they have passed the signature verification and been loaded by the kernel?
This is not even a valid executable.
Most likely is not loaded as a driver binary, but instead is some data file used by the CrowdStrike driver.
Most likely is not loaded as a driver binary, but instead is some data file used by the CrowdStrike driver.
Seems like a data file: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41004103
It's possible that these aren't the original file contents, but rather the result of a manual attempt to stop the bleeding.
Someone may have hoped that overwriting the bad file with an all-0 file of the correct size would make the update benign.
Or following the "QA was bypassed because there was a critical vulnerability" hypothesis, stopping distribution of the real patch may be an attempt to reduce access to the real data and slow reverse-engineering of the vulnerability.
Someone may have hoped that overwriting the bad file with an all-0 file of the correct size would make the update benign.
Or following the "QA was bypassed because there was a critical vulnerability" hypothesis, stopping distribution of the real patch may be an attempt to reduce access to the real data and slow reverse-engineering of the vulnerability.
Found this post on 4chan's technology board:
What actually happened was two-folded:
Step 1: CSAgent.sys is a certified durgasoft kernel driver that parses clownstrike virus definition files
Step 2: Clownstrike never fixed cases for malformed virus definition files that could trigger an invalid memory access in CSAgent.sys
Step 3: Clownstrike ships the buggy CSAgent.sys and it works for months without problems on customer computers with good virus definition files
Step 4: For some reason the webserver serving virus definition files to all endpoints started serving malformed virus definition files, sometimes they were all blank or filled with random bytes
Step 5: All clownstrike updaters now download malformed LE NEXT GEN APT PROTECTION CLOUD AI LIVE UPDATES into C:\Windows\System32\drivers\clownstrike
Step 6: CSAgent.sys reloads virus definition files
Step 7: CSAgent.sys parses them and crashes with PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA (in kernel that means memory at an oopsie address was accessed)
Step 8: Computer BSOD and reboots
Step 9: CSAgent.sys loads virus definition files
Step 10: Goto Step 7
The kernel driver was a ticking timebomb just waiting for a bug in the CDN. I think it was some funny caching bug with le cloud http loadbalancer. Users reported that their C-00000291-00000000-00000032.sys contained random shit and actual real files that were a completely different part of the software, like US localization files.
You can see it in the diff between CSAgent.sys_18511.sys and CSAgent.sys_18513.sys, they changed size checks and increased sizes of buffers so that future malformed virus definition files wouldnt crash.
What actually happened was two-folded:
Step 1: CSAgent.sys is a certified durgasoft kernel driver that parses clownstrike virus definition files
Step 2: Clownstrike never fixed cases for malformed virus definition files that could trigger an invalid memory access in CSAgent.sys
Step 3: Clownstrike ships the buggy CSAgent.sys and it works for months without problems on customer computers with good virus definition files
Step 4: For some reason the webserver serving virus definition files to all endpoints started serving malformed virus definition files, sometimes they were all blank or filled with random bytes
Step 5: All clownstrike updaters now download malformed LE NEXT GEN APT PROTECTION CLOUD AI LIVE UPDATES into C:\Windows\System32\drivers\clownstrike
Step 6: CSAgent.sys reloads virus definition files
Step 7: CSAgent.sys parses them and crashes with PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA (in kernel that means memory at an oopsie address was accessed)
Step 8: Computer BSOD and reboots
Step 9: CSAgent.sys loads virus definition files
Step 10: Goto Step 7
The kernel driver was a ticking timebomb just waiting for a bug in the CDN. I think it was some funny caching bug with le cloud http loadbalancer. Users reported that their C-00000291-00000000-00000032.sys contained random shit and actual real files that were a completely different part of the software, like US localization files.
You can see it in the diff between CSAgent.sys_18511.sys and CSAgent.sys_18513.sys, they changed size checks and increased sizes of buffers so that future malformed virus definition files wouldnt crash.
> For some reason the webserver serving virus definition files to all endpoints started serving malformed virus definition files, sometimes they were all blank or filled with random bytes
That sounds like some virus protection on the server was stopping the reads from disk, and instead of throwing an error it was providing 0's for the output data instead.
It'll be funny if there's actually some antivirus package that caused it. ;)
That sounds like some virus protection on the server was stopping the reads from disk, and instead of throwing an error it was providing 0's for the output data instead.
It'll be funny if there's actually some antivirus package that caused it. ;)
Step 4. If this has occurred so many times, it is a hacker attack, targeting the poorly written Kernel driver. (But hey, right now at this election moment, with Trump's beloved company. It could be a show of strength)
We've had security software in the past break software compilation in this method by replacing entire files with zeros. I'm not saying this is the case, but it wouldn't surprise me if it were.
Basically the linker couldn't open the file on windows (because it was locked by another process scanning it), and didn't error. Just replaced the object code to be linked with zeros.
People couldn't figure out what was wrong until they opened a debugger and saw large chunks of object code replaced with zeros.
Basically the linker couldn't open the file on windows (because it was locked by another process scanning it), and didn't error. Just replaced the object code to be linked with zeros.
People couldn't figure out what was wrong until they opened a debugger and saw large chunks of object code replaced with zeros.
The number of times I encounter issues with Visual Studio not being able to write to the file I just compiled, ugh... We've even got an mt.exe wrapper that adds retries because AV likes to grab hold of newly created binaries right around the time mt.exe needs to write to it. Even our CI build process ends up failing randomly due to this.
I am going to take a guess on how the CrowdStrike event might have happened. This is based on two (2) observations:
(1) CS said they have always followed the same process in the past without issues
(2) (personal observation) When certain NAS drives get full and you modify a file, it ends up with all NULL bytes.
Here's my guess on how their process was:
Typically, when their content file is ready, they push it to their farm of QA test machines for testing and also to this NAS drive that's ready for deployment. And when all of their test deployments are successful, they press this BIG RED button that picks up this content file from the NAS drive for global deployment.
During their prior deployments, this NAS drive had plenty of free space and deployments went well. Now, when the NAS was full, upon copy, it produces a file with all NULL bytes.
In summary, the content file they tested with was not the file that got globally deployed.
At least it compressed well, which must have saved network resources during the update. :)
Resources like wall clock time.
That probably explains how it got past internal testing. Something went wrong after that, during deployment.
Someone on the Fediverse conjectured that it might have been down to the Azure glitch earlier in the day. An empty file would fit that if they weren't doing proper error checking on their downloads, etc.
It's crazy if they weren't signing and verifying downloads
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41006104#41006555
the flawed data was added in a post-processing step of the configuration update, which is after it's been tested internally but before it's copied to their update servers
the flawed data was added in a post-processing step of the configuration update, which is after it's been tested internally but before it's copied to their update servers
It's still crazy that a security tool does not validate content files it loads from disk that get regularly updated. Clearly fuzzing was not a priority either.
How many years has this Crowdstrike code been running without issues? You have put your finger on it: Fuzzing should have been part of a test plan. Even TDD isn't a bastard test engineer writing tests that probe edge cases. Even observing that your unit tests have good code coverage isn't a substitute for fuzzing. There is even a counter-argument that something that been reliable in the field should not be fixed for reasons like failing a test case never seen in real deployments, so why go making trouble.
It could be as simple as cosmic radiation that flipped a bit (it has happened before: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/subatomic-particl...), or as sophisticated as an adversarial hacking.
The same cosmic radiation that flips the bits to make some specific political party win.
I don't understand, how the signature even worked?
Please please tell me those drivers are signed... Right? ...
Something like
zero_output_file(fh, len(file))
flush()
fill_output_file(fh, data)
We can argue all we want about CI infrastructure, manual testing, test nets/deployment, staged deployment.
All of that is secondary: they wrote and shipped code that blindly loaded and tried to parse content from the network, and crashed when that failed. In kernel mode.
Honestly it’s probably good that this happened, because presumably someone malicious could use this level of broken logic to compromise kernel space.
Certainly the trust they put in the safety of parsing content downloaded from the internet makes me wonder about the correctness of their code for reading data from userspace.
All of that is secondary: they wrote and shipped code that blindly loaded and tried to parse content from the network, and crashed when that failed. In kernel mode.
Honestly it’s probably good that this happened, because presumably someone malicious could use this level of broken logic to compromise kernel space.
Certainly the trust they put in the safety of parsing content downloaded from the internet makes me wonder about the correctness of their code for reading data from userspace.
Note to self: on Monday, add a null character check to pre-commit hooks, and add the same check to pipelines.
It's perfectly normal for binary artifacts to contain null bytes, even long runs of them.
Yeah, I'd need to figure it out properly, but for unicode text files it should be OK. Good point about the binaries though, thank you!
You say Unicode, but you mean UTF-8. Now for 16 bit Unicode the story is different :)
I mentioned it in a separate parent, but null purge is - for the stuff I work with - completely non-negotiable. Nulls seem to break virtually everything, just by existing. Furthermore, old-timey PDFs are chock full of the things, for God knows what reason, and a huge amount of data I work with are old-timey PDF.
> Furthermore, old-timey PDFs are chock full of the things, for God knows what reason, and a huge amount of data I work with are old-timey PDF.
Probably UCS-2/UTF-16 encoding with ascii data.
Probably UCS-2/UTF-16 encoding with ascii data.
It's hard to localize. Early Postscript - PDF software was the wild west, particularly when it comes to the text streams. Something I've noticed is that they're used a LOT in things like randlists (bullet lists), tab leaders, other "space that isn't a space".
I'm reminded of how you have to use `{empty}` character refs in lightweight markup like Asciidoc to "hold your place" in a list, in case you need the first element in the list to be an admonition or block. Like so:
Anyways, I'm spitballing that these old-timey nulls I'm seeing are being employed in an equivalent way, some sort of internal bespoke workaround to a format restriction.
I'm reminded of how you have to use `{empty}` character refs in lightweight markup like Asciidoc to "hold your place" in a list, in case you need the first element in the list to be an admonition or block. Like so:
. {empty}
+
WARNING: Don't catch yourself on fire!
+
Pour the gasoline.
<procedure>
<step>
<warning> Don't catch yourself on fire!</warning>
<para>Pour the gasoline.</para>
</step>
</procedure>
Anyways, I'm spitballing that these old-timey nulls I'm seeing are being employed in an equivalent way, some sort of internal bespoke workaround to a format restriction.
The problem ISN'T the null character though. The problem is that they tested the system, THEN changed stuff, then uploaded the changed stuff.
Their standard methodology was to deploy untested stuff.
Their standard methodology was to deploy untested stuff.
While I won't discount it entirely, I think the people acting like this (alone) implies malice are being very silly.
I disagree. In the current day the stakes are too highly to naively attribute software flaws to incompetence. We should assume malice until it is ruled out, otherwise it will become a vector for software implants. These are matters of national security at this point.
"These are matters of national security at this point."
Which nation exactly? Who on earth "wins" by crashing vast numbers of PCs worldwide?
Many of the potential foes you might be thinking of are unlikely to actually run CS locally but its bad for business if your prey can't even boot their PCs and infra so you can scam them.
I might allow for a bunch of old school nihilists getting off on this sort of rubbish but it won't last and now an entire class of security software, standards and procedures will be fixed up. This is no deliberate "killer blow".
Who knew that well meaning security software running in Ring 0 could fuck up big style if QA takes a long walk off a short plank? Oh, anyone who worked in IT during the '90s and '00s! I remember Sophos and McAfee (now Trellix) and probably others managing to do something similar, back in the day.
Mono-cultures are subject to pretty catastrophic failures, by definition. If you go all in with the same thing as everyone else then if they sneeze, you will catch the 'flu too.
Which nation exactly? Who on earth "wins" by crashing vast numbers of PCs worldwide?
Many of the potential foes you might be thinking of are unlikely to actually run CS locally but its bad for business if your prey can't even boot their PCs and infra so you can scam them.
I might allow for a bunch of old school nihilists getting off on this sort of rubbish but it won't last and now an entire class of security software, standards and procedures will be fixed up. This is no deliberate "killer blow".
Who knew that well meaning security software running in Ring 0 could fuck up big style if QA takes a long walk off a short plank? Oh, anyone who worked in IT during the '90s and '00s! I remember Sophos and McAfee (now Trellix) and probably others managing to do something similar, back in the day.
Mono-cultures are subject to pretty catastrophic failures, by definition. If you go all in with the same thing as everyone else then if they sneeze, you will catch the 'flu too.
> Who on earth "wins" by crashing vast numbers of PCs worldwide?
Anyone who needs a big distraction so he can more likely achieve his real objective unnoticed.
Anyone who needs a big distraction so he can more likely achieve his real objective unnoticed.
You nearly managed a perfect comment: (t)he(y)
Fair enough but if you are going to take over the world you don't crash everything, indiscriminately unless you are a really sad old school nihilist.
This is not subtle. It is so stupid that the only explanation is stupidity or a silly experiment.
The first thing I did is start to analyze my logs, just in case. I don't use CS but therefore by the Grace of God, go I!
If you have a particular target, you don't fuck up the entire world.
Fair enough but if you are going to take over the world you don't crash everything, indiscriminately unless you are a really sad old school nihilist.
This is not subtle. It is so stupid that the only explanation is stupidity or a silly experiment.
The first thing I did is start to analyze my logs, just in case. I don't use CS but therefore by the Grace of God, go I!
If you have a particular target, you don't fuck up the entire world.
You can (and should) want to identify the root cause, without assuming malice.
Of course RCA should be conducted. But malice should be considered a likelihood until ruled out entirely. Without assuming malicious intent, we will overlook many avenues of attack.
Think about it this way. At the present time, CrowdStrike can accept dark money from an entity in order to halt the world's compute capacity in a plausibly deniable way. When the dust settles, they will be found guilty of negligence at most. This will allow this perverse incentive to persist.
If the stakes for bringing down a great deal of American compute infrastructure were greater, this would happen far less often. It is simple economics of risk.
Furthermore, CrowdStrike, being an entity that enjoys access to privileged sales channels thanks to its relationship with the government, is exactly the sort of entity that should be viewed as skeptically as possible, if the interests of the US Government are paramount. Why should the US Government create a small monopoly for CrowdStrike and not expect the strictest controls? That is not only bizarre, it is stupid.
Hope for the best and plan for the worst. That is how an entity should be viewed when it becomes critical to national security.
Think about it this way. At the present time, CrowdStrike can accept dark money from an entity in order to halt the world's compute capacity in a plausibly deniable way. When the dust settles, they will be found guilty of negligence at most. This will allow this perverse incentive to persist.
If the stakes for bringing down a great deal of American compute infrastructure were greater, this would happen far less often. It is simple economics of risk.
Furthermore, CrowdStrike, being an entity that enjoys access to privileged sales channels thanks to its relationship with the government, is exactly the sort of entity that should be viewed as skeptically as possible, if the interests of the US Government are paramount. Why should the US Government create a small monopoly for CrowdStrike and not expect the strictest controls? That is not only bizarre, it is stupid.
Hope for the best and plan for the worst. That is how an entity should be viewed when it becomes critical to national security.
It demonstrates terrible QC.
Clearly something failed catastrophically, but it could well be post-QC
Don’t mess with Quebec :D
I assume the Kernel driver itself has been signed, tested and verified by MS. The channel update files would be the responsibility of the CS and contain most of the information, including urgent (untested) information. This CS kernel driver is there to inspect, collect everything, receive CS settings and commands, and act in privileged mode. It's not a so complex system, the intelligence is in CS, that's why MS partners with them. But the code in the driver could at least do a perfect input check.
Shits happens. Blaming MS: I want to believe they do extensive sandbox testing, but in this case they could do better canary deployments, staged updates and not affect worldwide.
This looks like a test file that got deployed. Perhaps a QA test was newly added which ran and overwrote the build. This is all I can think of.
This could happen if there was a test for the above QA test. Such a meta test would necessarily have to write a test file to the same path as the build path. Unfortunately, the meta tests could have got incorporated into the same suite as the regular tests. Someone then could have decided to activate a test order randomizer for fun. The random order finally hit the anti-jackpot.
So ... the checksum of all the Seinfeld episodes?
Explain joke please
Seinfeld is a show about nothing
http://seinfeldscripts.com/ThePitch.htm
http://seinfeldscripts.com/ThePitch.htm
Seinfeld was "a show about nothing."
[deleted]
Lots of very strong opinions here what they should have done in terms of code/pipelines/etx from people who have no idea how CrownStrikes stack or build systems works and people who have no clue how to write that type of software themselves (including Windows kerneln modules).
I'm not versed enough into windows loading dll / driver, but isn't the caller able to handle that situation? Or windows itself? Does loading an empty file driver can be handled in a way that it does not make the OS crash?
Anytime critical infrastructure goes down I always have a fleeting thought back to “Spy Game” movie where the CIA cut power to part of a Chinese city to help with a prison escape.
Poor testing. But we also need to stop CISOs, etc doing "checkbox compliance" and installing every 3rd party thing on employee laptops. My prior employer, there were literally 13 things installed for "laptop security" - 1/2 of them overlapped. Developers had the same policy as an AE and as a Sales Engineer as well as an HR person. Crowdstrike was one of the worst. Updating third party packages in go was 30-40% faster in an emulated arm64 VM (qemu) - virtualized disk / disk just a large file - on an Intel MBP compared to doing the same operation on the native system in OSX.
I wonder if this is linked to the Azure outage that happened just prior to the Crowdstrike incident.
I'm starting to think that the timing (Friday) and the scale as well as other things (like this finding) might -- just might point to a bad actor.
We will probably have to wait for CS' own report.
We will probably have to wait for CS' own report.
Segue: What the heck is about Windows files and null characters? I've been almost exclusively dealing with POSIX file systems for the last 30 years, but I'm currently shipping a cross-platform app and a lot of my Windows users are encountering corrupted files which exhibit a bunch of NULs in random places in the file. I've added ugly hacks to deal with them but it'd be nice to get down to root causes. Is there a handy list of things that are safe on POSIX but not on Windows so I can figure out what I'm doing wrong?
I'm at the stage where I'm thinking "%$#@ this, I'm never going to write to the Windows file system again, I'm just going to create an SQLite DB and write to that instead". Will that fix my problems?
I'm at the stage where I'm thinking "%$#@ this, I'm never going to write to the Windows file system again, I'm just going to create an SQLite DB and write to that instead". Will that fix my problems?
Returning all zeros randomly is one of the failure modes of crappy consumer SSDs with buggy controllers. Especially those found in cheap laptops and on Amazon. If it’s a fully counterfeit drive it might even be maliciously reporting a size larger than it has flash chips to support. It will accept writes without error but return zeros for sectors that are “fake”. This can appear random due to wear-leveling in the controller.
I'd guess yes, and you get the SQL goodness to boot :)
Sounds like you have an encoding issue somewhere, windows has it's own charset - Windows-1252, so I'd vet all your libs that touch the file (including eg. .Net libs etc). If one of them defaults to that encoding you may get it either mislabelling the file encoding, or adding in null after each append etc.
SQLite is tested cross-platform so 100% the file will be cross-platform compatible.
Sounds like you have an encoding issue somewhere, windows has it's own charset - Windows-1252, so I'd vet all your libs that touch the file (including eg. .Net libs etc). If one of them defaults to that encoding you may get it either mislabelling the file encoding, or adding in null after each append etc.
SQLite is tested cross-platform so 100% the file will be cross-platform compatible.
Normally, there are 3 notable things that are unique about Windows files:
* It's standard for "security" software to be installed and hook into the filesystem. Normally this only means giving up on several orders of magnitude of performance, but as this incident reminds us: security software is indistinguishable from malware.
* The system has a very long history of relying on exclusive access to files. This is one of the major reasons for Windows needing to restart so many times, but also leads to a lot of programs being badly written, among other things making false assumptions regarding atomicity in the presence of system failure.
* There's a difference between text files and binary files, and thus a whole pain of adding/removing \r before \n (which among other things means byte counts are wrong and checksums mismatching).
* It's standard for "security" software to be installed and hook into the filesystem. Normally this only means giving up on several orders of magnitude of performance, but as this incident reminds us: security software is indistinguishable from malware.
* The system has a very long history of relying on exclusive access to files. This is one of the major reasons for Windows needing to restart so many times, but also leads to a lot of programs being badly written, among other things making false assumptions regarding atomicity in the presence of system failure.
* There's a difference between text files and binary files, and thus a whole pain of adding/removing \r before \n (which among other things means byte counts are wrong and checksums mismatching).
A lot of your users encountering file corruption on Windows either means that somehow your users are much more likely to have broken hardware, or more realistically that you have a bug in your code/libraries.
I think omoikane pinpointed the primary cause, hard power loss. I definitely do some writing when receiving the shutdown signal, and I bet some people initiate a normal shutdown but remove power before it finishes. I think trying to avoid writes upon receipt of a shutdown signal will help.
The Windows NTFS is safe and reliable. It doesn't corrupt files. You have probably misunderstood the problem.
I have observed a file filled NULs that was caused by a power loss in the middle of a write -- my UPS alerted me that utility power is gone, I tried to shutdown cleanly, but the battery died before a clean shutdown completed. This was NTFS on a HDD and not a SSD.
I am not saying it happens often, but it does happen once in a while.
I am not saying it happens often, but it does happen once in a while.
NTFS guarantees file-system metadata integrity, not file data integrity. Subtle but important difference.
The file was corrupted, but the file-system remained consistent.
The file was corrupted, but the file-system remained consistent.
Had the same on journaled ext4 on Linux. Lots of NULL bytes in the middle of the syslog because of unclean shutdown.
Yes, corruption does appear to be correlated with power cycles.
However I'm using it it certainly isn't. It's certainly quite likely the problem is me, not Windows.
Most of the files that are getting corrupted are being written to in an append-only fashion, which is generally one of the mechanisms for writing to files to avoid corruption, at least on POSIX.
Most of the files that are getting corrupted are being written to in an append-only fashion, which is generally one of the mechanisms for writing to files to avoid corruption, at least on POSIX.
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Maybe Crowdstrike has adopted
the modern ethos
Move fast and break things
With continuous integration
we ship a thousand times a day.
fuck QA.
So basically they don't do input validation. Any file signed (maybe) by CS is treated as valid and the kernel driver loads it. Wow.
I'm curious how this scenario, malformed definitions file signed by CS itself is not verified in any way on the endpoint. Like a try {} catch something...
I mean, the failure is spectacular in its simplicity.
I'm curious how this scenario, malformed definitions file signed by CS itself is not verified in any way on the endpoint. Like a try {} catch something...
I mean, the failure is spectacular in its simplicity.
thats a lot of prod to test in.
conspiracy prediction: I don't think CS will give a complete public RCA on it, but I do think the impact and crisis will be a pretext for granting new internet governance powers, maybe via EO, or a co-ordinated international response via the UN/ITU and the EU.
EU recently passed a law in this domain: https://www.eiopa.europa.eu/digital-operational-resilience-a...
DORA is coincidental, but worth watching as a potential source of authority under some partisan disinformation initiatives. security in general is governance, where previously it had a high bar for competence to practice, and you can see it getting stacked in institutions of people without practitioner competence who can be relied on to defer to narrative.
as soon as security can come fully uncoupled from physical competence and the factual constraints of engineering, it will get subsumed into the managerialist hivemind as a rhetorical lever on narrative actuated cogs, and become as meaningless as everything else they do in service to administrative power for its own sake. I have a real problem with these people. :)
as soon as security can come fully uncoupled from physical competence and the factual constraints of engineering, it will get subsumed into the managerialist hivemind as a rhetorical lever on narrative actuated cogs, and become as meaningless as everything else they do in service to administrative power for its own sake. I have a real problem with these people. :)
Is there not responsibility at some level as well to Microsoft for having a kernel which even loaded this? Not just because of the apparent corruption, but also ... it was, I heard.. signed and given a bit of an MS blessing.
This crap shouldn't be run in kernel space. But putting that aside, we need kernels that will be resilient to and reject this stuff.
This crap shouldn't be run in kernel space. But putting that aside, we need kernels that will be resilient to and reject this stuff.
The thing is that, despite the file has a confusing .sys extension, it's not the driver, but rather a data file loaded by the Crowdstrike driver.
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I blame Microsoft. Why? Because they rely on third parties to fill in their gaps. When I buy a Mac it already has drivers for my printers, but not if I buy a Windows PC. Some of these printers drivers are 250 MB, which is a crazy size for a driver. If it is more than a few 100 KB it means the manufacturer does not know how to make a driver software. Microsoft should make it unnecessary to rely on crappy third party software so much.
CrowdStrike's mess up is CrowdStrike's fault, not Microsoft's. We might not like the way Windows works, but it usually works fine and more restrictive systems also have downsides. In any case, it was CrowdStrike who dropped the ball and created this mess.
I don't like what Microsoft is doing with Windows and only use it for gaming (I'm glad Linux is becoming a good option for that), so I'm far from being a "Microsoft fan", but Windows is very good at installing the software needed. Plug a GPU, mouse, etc, from any well known brand and it should work without you doing much.
I didn't have to install anything on my Windows PC (or my MBP) last time I bought a new printer (Epson). The option to let Windows install the drivers needed is enabled though... some people disable that.
I don't like what Microsoft is doing with Windows and only use it for gaming (I'm glad Linux is becoming a good option for that), so I'm far from being a "Microsoft fan", but Windows is very good at installing the software needed. Plug a GPU, mouse, etc, from any well known brand and it should work without you doing much.
I didn't have to install anything on my Windows PC (or my MBP) last time I bought a new printer (Epson). The option to let Windows install the drivers needed is enabled though... some people disable that.
Windows should NEVER blue screen for third-party software. This is definitely as much Microsoft's fault as anyone's.
Maybe Microsoft doesn't offer an ABI or whatever other access is needed for the CS module. So there's some work that needs to be done on the kernel to enable the functionality to run in user space. Third-party libraries should not have privileged access to the kernel internals.
In this case, the CloudStrike kernel module attempted to read a bogus data file and crashed. The Windows kernel should detect the module crash, inform you in some meaningful way, but continue to boot. Maybe even in some limited execution model, but not a blue screen.
CloudStrike should have tested better. A LOT better. Multiple layers of tests better. They should most definitely take serious their obligations to the millions of customers that are affected by this. But Microsoft needs to own some of the responsibility too, by allowing a 3rd party kernel module to even be able to bring down its system. Just because the program was signed, doesn't mean when it crashes, Windows should crash with it.
Maybe Microsoft doesn't offer an ABI or whatever other access is needed for the CS module. So there's some work that needs to be done on the kernel to enable the functionality to run in user space. Third-party libraries should not have privileged access to the kernel internals.
In this case, the CloudStrike kernel module attempted to read a bogus data file and crashed. The Windows kernel should detect the module crash, inform you in some meaningful way, but continue to boot. Maybe even in some limited execution model, but not a blue screen.
CloudStrike should have tested better. A LOT better. Multiple layers of tests better. They should most definitely take serious their obligations to the millions of customers that are affected by this. But Microsoft needs to own some of the responsibility too, by allowing a 3rd party kernel module to even be able to bring down its system. Just because the program was signed, doesn't mean when it crashes, Windows should crash with it.
> Windows should NEVER blue screen for third-party software. This is definitely as much Microsoft's fault as anyone's.
It's Microsoft's fault that someone wrote drivers for its OS?
It's Microsoft's fault that someone wrote drivers for its OS?
It is Microsoft's fault that computers running Windows caused 911 systems to fail, surgeries to be postponed, flights to be canceled and so on. Yes, a third party was involved, but why didn't Microsoft have a system for vetting third parties before giving them kernel access?
Apple won't let you add an app to their app store without a vetting process. Microsoft lets you alter the kernel without a vetting process? How many people died today because they didn't get surgeries and because of failed 911 calls?
Apple won't let you add an app to their app store without a vetting process. Microsoft lets you alter the kernel without a vetting process? How many people died today because they didn't get surgeries and because of failed 911 calls?
And what responsibilities do hospitals and 911 centers or the makers of products to these institutions have for running mission critical software properly? At the bare minimum these systems should have been air gaped.
Microsoft is not recommending to run software that monkey patches kernel for mission critical applications or run them on public networks like this. Does your car download software like this and crash on the road because of faulty update?
Time and again we keep seeing down times at hospitals due to ransomware or hacks, when will these institutions that people trust their lives with, take their IT posture seriously rather than blame anyone else.
Microsoft is not recommending to run software that monkey patches kernel for mission critical applications or run them on public networks like this. Does your car download software like this and crash on the road because of faulty update?
Time and again we keep seeing down times at hospitals due to ransomware or hacks, when will these institutions that people trust their lives with, take their IT posture seriously rather than blame anyone else.
> Windows should NEVER blue screen for third-party software.
Agreed, it's a Windows weakness. It should be improved. But if the system boots normally even if something like CrowdStrike fails, then you create other problems, which may be more serious than a BSOD.
I don't put the blame on Microsoft because enterprise customers should know how Windows works. Should we use Windows and some low level, 3rd party, remotely updated software (without a slow, controlled rollout) if you can't have BSODs? Yeah...
It's a big "cock up". I blame mostly CrowdStrike because they're the ones who messed up. Then we have those who decided to use Windows with CrowdStrike even on very sensitive systems. Microsoft is at fault for creating an OS with this weakness, but this is how Windows works... if it's not good enough for the task, don't use it.
Agreed, it's a Windows weakness. It should be improved. But if the system boots normally even if something like CrowdStrike fails, then you create other problems, which may be more serious than a BSOD.
I don't put the blame on Microsoft because enterprise customers should know how Windows works. Should we use Windows and some low level, 3rd party, remotely updated software (without a slow, controlled rollout) if you can't have BSODs? Yeah...
It's a big "cock up". I blame mostly CrowdStrike because they're the ones who messed up. Then we have those who decided to use Windows with CrowdStrike even on very sensitive systems. Microsoft is at fault for creating an OS with this weakness, but this is how Windows works... if it's not good enough for the task, don't use it.
> CrowdStrike's mess up is CrowdStrike's fault, not Microsoft's.
Disagree. It is everyone's fault. It is CrowdStrike's fault for not testing their product. It is Microsoft's fault for allowing CrowdStrike to mess with kernel and not vetting such critical third parties. It is the end customers' fault for installing crapware and not vetting the vendor.
Disagree. It is everyone's fault. It is CrowdStrike's fault for not testing their product. It is Microsoft's fault for allowing CrowdStrike to mess with kernel and not vetting such critical third parties. It is the end customers' fault for installing crapware and not vetting the vendor.
We expect different things from the OS we use, I guess.
My main machine is a Macbook Pro and one thing that annoys me a lot is the way Apple handles apps that are not notarized. I don't use iPhones because of the system restrictions (file access, background running, etc) and because I can only install what Apple allows on their store. You can see why I don't want Microsoft to hold my hand when I use Windows... it's my machine, I paid for it, I should be able to install crapware and extend the system functionality if that's what I want especially when I pick an OS that allows me to do that.
In this case, enterprise customers decided to use an OS that allows them to also use CrowdStrike. Maybe Microsoft could handle this stuff better and not show a BSOD? I guess so, but I won't blame them for allowing these tools to exist.
Don't get me wrong, there's a place for very restrictive operating systems like iOS or ChromeOS, but they're not for everyone or enough for all tasks. Windows is a very capable OS, certainly not the best option for everyone, but the day Microsoft cripples Windows like that, it's the day I am forced to stop using it.
My main machine is a Macbook Pro and one thing that annoys me a lot is the way Apple handles apps that are not notarized. I don't use iPhones because of the system restrictions (file access, background running, etc) and because I can only install what Apple allows on their store. You can see why I don't want Microsoft to hold my hand when I use Windows... it's my machine, I paid for it, I should be able to install crapware and extend the system functionality if that's what I want especially when I pick an OS that allows me to do that.
In this case, enterprise customers decided to use an OS that allows them to also use CrowdStrike. Maybe Microsoft could handle this stuff better and not show a BSOD? I guess so, but I won't blame them for allowing these tools to exist.
Don't get me wrong, there's a place for very restrictive operating systems like iOS or ChromeOS, but they're not for everyone or enough for all tasks. Windows is a very capable OS, certainly not the best option for everyone, but the day Microsoft cripples Windows like that, it's the day I am forced to stop using it.
> be Microsoft could handle this stuff better and not show a BSOD?
How would the OS differentiate between a compromised agent and a faulty one ?. Do you want the OS to continue boot when it is potentially compromised ? That is likely to cause a lot more damage than yesterday did.
How would the OS differentiate between a compromised agent and a faulty one ?. Do you want the OS to continue boot when it is potentially compromised ? That is likely to cause a lot more damage than yesterday did.
so now we're vouching for more restrictive operating systems? the last thing I want is an operating system that can only install vetted apps, and that these apps are restricted even if I provide my root password.
Allowing an application to run with privilege is different than allowing an application to crash the kernel. These are two different things.
CloudStrike is effectively running as a Windows kernel module. Which in Windows, might as well be the Windows kernel itself. There should be a deliberate difference between things that a bare operating system needs to function vs. things which are allowed to execute in a privileged manner.
This isn't a restrictive operating system. You have to trust your operating system vendor just a little more than you trust the 3rd party software installed on it.
CloudStrike is effectively running as a Windows kernel module. Which in Windows, might as well be the Windows kernel itself. There should be a deliberate difference between things that a bare operating system needs to function vs. things which are allowed to execute in a privileged manner.
This isn't a restrictive operating system. You have to trust your operating system vendor just a little more than you trust the 3rd party software installed on it.
Which printer did you try it with? I've never had issues with printing out of the box with windows or mac. At least not for the past 5 years.
Also, I'm glad Microsoft doesn't provide an easy way to get what is essentially complete control over a machine, and every single event/connection/process that it has.
Also, I'm glad Microsoft doesn't provide an easy way to get what is essentially complete control over a machine, and every single event/connection/process that it has.
I think this is unfair; m$ does provide perfectly usable generic printer drivers, as long as you only use basic universal features. The problem is that the printer producers each want to provide a host of features on top of that, each in their own proprietary way, with post print hole-punching, 5 different paper trays, user boxes, 4 different options for duplex printing.
Also, label printers, why the heck does zebra only do EPL or ZPL? Why not pcl6 or PS like the rest of the universe?
The point is that printers are bullshit. Nobody knows how they work, and assuming that microsoft should just figure it out on its own is at least in my opinion, unreasonable.
Also, label printers, why the heck does zebra only do EPL or ZPL? Why not pcl6 or PS like the rest of the universe?
The point is that printers are bullshit. Nobody knows how they work, and assuming that microsoft should just figure it out on its own is at least in my opinion, unreasonable.
What Windows was known for in the 1990s, is good quality 1st party drivers. Then after Windows achieved monopoly status they shifted driver responsibility to device manufacturers. I have never had to install a third party driver on a Mac, but on Windows I do. If Apple can do it Microsoft can too.
Holy smokes. I'm no programmer, but I've built out bazillions of publishing/conversion/analysis systems, and null purge is pretty much the first thing that happens, every time. x00 breaks virtually everything just by existing - like, seriously, markup with one of these damn things will make the rest of the system choke and die as soon as it looks at it. Numpy? Pytorch? XSL? Doesn't matter. cough cough cough GACK
And my systems are all halfass, and I don't really know what I'm doing. I can't imagine actual real professionals letting that moulder its way downstream. Maybe their stuff is just way more complex and amazing than I can possibly imagine.
And my systems are all halfass, and I don't really know what I'm doing. I can't imagine actual real professionals letting that moulder its way downstream. Maybe their stuff is just way more complex and amazing than I can possibly imagine.
Binary files are full of null bytes it is one of the main criteria of binary file recognition. Also large swaths of null bytes are also common, common enough we have sparse files - files with holes in them. Those holes are all zeroes, but are not allocated in the file system. For an easy example think about a disk image.
Ah, I'm a dummy. Of course these would be binaries getting chucked around.
Not a C programmer, why is 0x00 so bad? It's the string terminator character right?
It's a byte like any other. You're more likely to see big files full of 0x0 than 0x1, but it's really not so different.
Indeed, '\0' is the sentinel character for uncounted strings in C, and even if your own counted string implementation is “null-byte clean”, aspects of the underlying system may not be (Windows and Unix filesystems forbid embedded null characters, for example).
I’m not even particularly stringent when it comes to automated test across-the-board but for this level of criticality of system, you need exceptionally good state management
To the point where you should not roll to production without an integration test on every environment that you claim to support
Like it’s insane to me that this size and criticality of a company doesn’t have a staging or even a development test server that tests all of the possible target images that they claim to support.
Who is running stuff over there - total incompetence