Crowdstrike CEO was McAfee CTO when big glitch took down large part of Internet

https://twitter.com/anshelsag/status/1814426186933776846

by greatgib • 2 years ago

48 14 2 years ago

blowski2• 2 years ago

From Wikipedia:

On April 21, 2010, beginning at approximately 14:00 UTC, millions of computers worldwide running Windows XP Service Pack 3 were affected by an erroneous virus definition file update by McAfee, resulting in the removal of a Windows system file (svchost.exe) on those machines, causing machines to lose network access and, in some cases, enter a reboot loop. McAfee rectified this by removing and replacing the faulty DAT file, version 5958, with an emergency DAT file, version 5959 and has posted a fix for the affected machines in their consumer knowledge base.

BBC article from the time: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8636985.stm

firebaze• 2 years ago

Quite a few similar submissions in the last 24 hours gained enough upvotes to show on the front page, seems like someone keeps flagging them. I'm not sure why though, I think the discussion about the similarities and potential reasons behind these events could prove interesting.

This post is not even on the first four pages despite ~20 upvotes within an hour, from experience this takes quite a few flags

politelemon• 2 years ago

Yes would be interesting to know what policy implementations or directions could have been common factors between the two companies which led to these incidents.

blowski2• 2 years ago

Yes, I'd be interested to hear that. From initial reports, it sounds like under-investment in QA because of over-confidence in automated QC.

It's an example of a "black swan" or Bertrand Russell's chicken - the same process has worked many times, leading people to make the false conclusion that the risk has become neglible. There's a successful trial period in which the beancounters reduce headcount with no negative consequences. So the trial becomes permanent, people become less careful. And then boom.

They miss that a 1 in 10000 occurence is going to happen eventually, and that "unnecessary expense" which was previously there to mitigate it has now been removed.

pvg3• 2 years ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41007084

The similarities are basically coincidence - the rather confected connection doesn't tell you much about either event and the most recent one is in active discussion on the front page already.

chrisjj• 2 years ago

The significance may be confected, but the connection certainly is not, being a matter of public record.

rurban• 2 years ago

It tells you that the fish stinks from the head

xnx• 2 years ago

The Thomas Midgley Jr of software.

dang• 2 years ago

Related ongoing megathread:

CrowdStrike Update: Windows Bluescreen and Boot Loops - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41002195 - July 2024 (3590 comments)

OutOfHere• 2 years ago

Is the playbook to sell to Intel again?

xenospn• 2 years ago

He’s like the Forrest Gump of failure

dakial1• 2 years ago

Fun to read HN post from that time:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1282791

Crowdstrike CEO was McAfee CTO when big glitch took down large part of Internet

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