Microsoft's global sprawl under fire from regulators after Windows outage

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/07/20/microsoft-outage-crowdstrike-regulatory-scrutiny/

by leotravis10 • 2 years ago

45 96 2 years ago

lambdaone• 2 years ago

It was inevitable that something like this would happen sooner or later, either through security complacency or sheer bad luck. We were just fortunate it only happened to Windows.

pjmlp2• 2 years ago

They already managed to bork Linux systems a couple of months ago, but then again all the services that went down, never heard of Year of Linux Desktop.

https://x.com/shantanugoel/status/1814567750289006686

bilekas3• 2 years ago

I'm of two minds on this one personally. I see simular `single points of failure` potentials with CloudFlare for example. Sometimes it highlights this topic. But at the same time, I really do feel more comfortable with a large experienced company being responsible for some of that infrastructure that is expensive to maintain correctly..

I don't know what the solution is, but it's something that needs to be figured out.

bsder• 2 years ago

I don't know what the solution is, but it's something that needs to be figured out.

The "solution" is that you bust up large companies until their market share of a vertical is less than 20%.

The fact that Microsoft controls 75%+ of the desktop/laptop market should get that pulled out of the company and broken up. The fact that Google and Microsoft control the email hosting market should get pulled out and broken up, etc.

jmclnx• 2 years ago

In a blog post Saturday, Microsoft estimated that the update affected 8.5 million devices, which amounts to less than 1 percent of computers running Windows

Cute, but the 1% were the systems that matter most, who cares if people could still watch LOL Cat Videos at home.

No one I know who works at a company using a Windows system was unaffected.

Actually wrong, 1 person was fine, he got a brand new PC the day before, but it had no corporate mandated "security items" (per the help desk), so he could work. He was still able to connect to the corporate intranet.

tomrod• 2 years ago

That's probably a very low estimate. Many hospitals and government agencies were virtually crippled.

ApolloFortyNine• 2 years ago

Do some of these news agencies own Crowdstrike stock? How can you blame Windows here? For simply allowing an application that can crash the OS?

I truly don't understand the angle here, besides ignorance.

dlahoda7• 2 years ago

not only allowing, but approving? they signed driver, right?

linux also allows, by approval is decentralized

bilekas3• 2 years ago

Based on a simular comment you've made, I think there is some confusion for you as to what driver signing actually is. It's a certificate of Authority to identify the Distributer of the driver as legitimate or not.

Indeed, this messup was signed, so correctly it was signed. As for the code/behaviour. It's nothing to do with signing.

gruez16• 2 years ago

by approval is decentralized

Translation: it's up to whoever is the sysadmin is, which probably was responsible for crowdstrike being installed in the first place. Such "approval" would have made no difference in preventing this disaster.

surfingdino2• 2 years ago

From the point of view of a lay person Microsoft was caught asleep at the wheel. It allowed high levels of privileged access to their customers' systems. Anti-malware software ought to be monitored and scrutinised by Microsoft's own security teams no matter that it was the customers who wanted to/were told to use CrowdStrike. But I guess they spend too much on silly fidget-widgets like OpenAI to have a budget to watch the bottom line.

averageRoyalty4• 2 years ago

If I design and sell a car and you electrocute yourself replacing a head unit cutting wires - despite warnings from me saying "I don't recommend replacing the head unit, it could be dangerous. I've provided you one with basic functionality" - can you reasonably argue that I should have made it harder to replace head units, or been out auditing third party head units on the market?

Your argument is anti software freedom. My Windows computer (or any other OS I choose to put on) should be able to run whatever code I instruct it to. The flip side of that coin is that the consequences are mine from doing so.

gruez16• 2 years ago

It seems baffling that Microsoft is getting heat for this. They didn't cause the issue, a third party vendor's software did. Even if you were trying to make an argument of "if we had more diversity it wouldn't be as bad", shouldn't you be focusing on the EDR vendors rather than the OS vendor?

dlahoda7• 2 years ago

is not it the case that kernel drivers are signed and approved by microsoft?

bilekas3• 2 years ago

I'm not aware of Microsoft signing off on vendor kernal drivers code changes.

Driver signing is not a Quality Assurance measure. It's an identify measure.

gruez16• 2 years ago

Would the disaster have been prevented if there was no code signing? Or are you arguing that Microsoft should scrutinize code even harder?

k8sToGo• 2 years ago

You are confusing notarized (what Apple does) and signed (what both do). The latter just allows to confirm legitimacy.

scopeh• 2 years ago

I think it was essentially a data/config file that was corrupt not a new driver kernel. nothing really to be signed and approved by mircosoft.

slowmovintarget2• 2 years ago

Drivers yes, virus signature files or configuration files pushed by third parties, no.

kermatt• 2 years ago

Regulators who may not understand the difference between an OS and a driver.

teekert• 2 years ago

So normies in governments are finally seeing the issues, it’s for the wrong reason indeed, but is it though? It could have been an MS trip up and then it may have been worse even…

slowmovintarget2• 2 years ago

Microsoft personnel are usually more careful with existential risks... usually.

guidedlight3• 2 years ago

Microsoft are signing kernel drivers for over-the-air updates pushed by vendors.

Whilst telling their corporate customers that using Microsoft InTune will allow them to be in full control of their configuration management.

gruez16• 2 years ago

Microsoft are signing kernel drivers for over-the-air updates pushed by vendors.

The crash was caused by a configuration update pushed by crowdstrike, not a new driver.

Whilst telling their corporate customers that using Microsoft InTune will allow them to be in full control of their configuration management.

How is this relevant? This wasn't caused by some sysadmin that goofed a config change using intune, it's something pushed by crowdstrike itself.

jeroenhd• 2 years ago

Part of Microsoft's problem is that right before the CrowdStrike outage, there was an outage of some large Microsoft services, making the two look connected. It didn't help that a lot of Microsoft support consultants also ran CrowdStrike laptops, getting affected right when customers were.

But this is quite typical. Microsoft generally doesn't direct blame to anyone (anyone non-malicious at least) but in this case I feel like they really should.

thayne3• 2 years ago

Is it baffling? Only windows computers were affected, so this provides ammunition for people who are already concerned about the prevalence of windows.

I think this is more politically motivated than actually trying to address the real problem.

However I do, think Microsoft deserves some blame, since if Windows was more secure by default there would be less need for 3rd party anti-malware software that can fail so catastrophically. But, Crowdstrike certainly is more to blame for thos particular disaster.

Rinzler89• 2 years ago

Only windows computers were affected

Because only Crowdstrike's Windows release was broken by them and they didn't fuck it up on the other OS. How is this Window's fault? It's not like that tool was binary cross platform compatible for all operating systems, like Electron VS Code, in order to put the blame on the OS. It's basically a complete different tool tailored to each OS kernel, under the same brand name.

if Windows was more secure by default there would be less need for 3rd party anti-malware software that can fail so catastrophicall

Which Windows security vulnerability needed the use of Crowsdstrike's tool? How do you measure this security threshold at which you say an OS is so secure that you don't need a third party EDR vendor anymore? You see, here's the problem. That threshold does not exist, since security it's a continuous arms race, and EDR vendors are incentivize to scaremonger you into thinking Windows or whatever OS you use is so insecure and your employees so incompetent and untrustworthy with what they do on their computers that your multi billion dollar won't be able to survive if you don't buy their tool.

And that's partly true to some extents. You can have the most secure OS in the world, but if Bob from accounting runs a script he found online as root then all that OS security was for nothing since the OS can't magically detect that Bob is an idiot and should not run that command as sudo even though Bob has the right credentials for it. That's why companies hire these digital watchmen, to watch over their systems for suspicios behavior since neither Windows, nor MacOS, nor Linux can do this out of the box. The question remains who watches the watchmen? You're now trusting an EDR vendor with the keys to your kingdom instead of Bob.

gruez16• 2 years ago

However I do, think Microsoft deserves some blame, since if Windows was more secure by default there would be less need for 3rd party anti-malware software that can fail so catastrophically.

There's actually a first-party product: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/defender-xdr/microsoft-365...

ehsankia2• 2 years ago

I'm curious what people think, but while obviously CrowdStrike caused the breakage, does the Operating System not have some responsibility in not allowing such outages to happen? Especially if it's an enterprise product?

Ideas:

1. Microsoft themselves could potentially enforce a gradual rollout on updates (did the update go through windows updates?)

2. Have better automatic recovery options, could windows have detected the bad driver and reverted it automatically?

3. just generally be more resilient, why should one bad driver take everything down?

gruez16• 2 years ago

1. Microsoft themselves could potentially enforce a gradual rollout on updates (did the update go through windows updates?)

No. The crash was caused by a "configuration update", not through code pushed through windows update.

https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/falcon-update-for-windows-h...

2. Have better automatic recovery options, could windows have detected the bad driver and reverted it automatically?

see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41019743

3. just generally be more resilient, why should one bad driver take everything down?

It's kernel mode. With great power comes great responsibility. Blaming the OS is like blaming linux that you can sudo rm -rf /.

xboxnolifes• 2 years ago

I'd expect the HN crowd to not give Microsoft beef here or want them to lock down the OS more. At least, that would be consistent with usual comments about letting users control their OS. Companies chose (with some regulatory pressure) to install CrowdStrike at the kernel level after all.

jkrejcha2• 2 years ago

does the Operating System not have some responsibility in not allowing such outages to happen?

No. External drivers are acting as part of the operating system, their responsibility is to follow the rules for kernel drivers. Don't use-after-free or dereference otherwise bad memory (as appears to be the case here[1]), make sure you only access pageable memory at the correct IRQL, etc etc.

The kernel's job is to provide services and to make sure the other components are running smoothly. The problem is, by the time that something bad like a bad dereference has occurred, other issues may start to arise. And unloading a driver or something may cause data loss and may not actually fix the underlying problem (especially if you pin the error on the wrong driver[2]).

If third party software does not follow the contract, there's... really not much they can or really should do. In user mode, an access violation is given to the program when you access bad memory. This usually results in a process crash, which while annoying, may be fine. User mode programs can't[3] bring down the operating system.

In kernel mode, there's no way for the OS to know that you're not going to start overwriting the disk accidentally so they made what they believe to be the safest choice--stop[4].

In any case, there's really no way for 1 to happen (since driver updates can be done externally to Microsoft), 2 is nebulous, and 3 is potentially dangerous.

---

[1] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/d...

[2]: For example, in the case of stack corruption.

[3]: Technically they can in a couple of limited cases (but this really isn't the point). The first being killing CSRSS or another process with the "critical" kernel flag, and another by using NtShutdownSystem from the NT API.

[4]: Other operating systems have taken a different philosophy. Notably Linux can be configured to allow the machine to run after a driver or other external event causes a kernel oops.

josephcsible2• 2 years ago

does the Operating System not have some responsibility in not allowing such outages to happen?

No. The OS is supposed to guarantee that userspace programs can't crash the system like this, but CrowdStrike is an invasive kernelspace driver, not a userspace program.

AstralStorm4• 2 years ago

They have tried some experiments in this area, like CLR drivers and altogether different kernel.

Nothing stuck for a variety of reasons...

Reverting security to an insecure state is called a downgrade attack. Can't allow that.

What could be done is a better Safe Mode with Networking that would allow for secure remoting over an AD enterprise configuration... And the machines configured to automatically enter that mode. Still bit of a security issue potential.

shadowgovt2• 2 years ago

What responsibility does the Linux bear if you write your own kernel module, install it, and it bricks your machine until you boot into a different OS?

There are limits to the sensible responsibility of the operating system vendor / maintainer. They stopped somewhere south of "mutating core configuration of the OS itself," because if they don't, the owner doesn't control their own computer.

rewgs2• 2 years ago

There is a frustrating amount of nuance being lost in this discussion, and as usual it's devolving into tribalism.

However, I'll say that, while this clearly is not Microsoft's fault, the realization of just how much critical infrastructure is running on Windows -- let alone Windows that's connected to the internet and has automatic updates enabled -- was sobering.

Are kernel mode drives maybe a bad idea? Yes! Should Windows be able to automatically roll back if a kernel mode driver fails? Yes! Should CrowdStrike have tested before pushing out the update? Yes! Should hospitals, police stations, airlines, etc be testing any and all updates that come their way prior to releasing them onto the rest of their fleets? Yes!

And so on and so on. The failures here are legion. I can at least say for myself that all of that (and more) is what I'm grappling with today, rather than the direct, root cause and content of the issue itself.

I say this entirely with as little tribalism or bias as I can muster: Windows should not be the foundation upon which critical infrastructure is built. It is a bad OS. It is a rickety, insecure mess; this observation (note that I did not say opinion) has only ever increased with time.

The NT kernel, I hear, is great. I generally trust those who say this, as they tend to be demonstrably much smarter than I am, especially with regards to kernel design, which is something I know next to nothing about.

But Windows? Nah man. Maybe there's a good kernel running the show, but the OS as a whole is a shitshow. Yes, this exact same problem could have (and has) happened on Linux; the OS is indeed not the culprit. But the understanding that this one, single, no good very bad OS is responsible for this much critical infrastructure going from an abstract worry to a real, concrete horror show has, I think, hit a lot of people, leading to a poorly-pivoted change of subject.

gruez16• 2 years ago

There is a frustrating amount of nuance being lost in this discussion, and as usual it's devolving into tribalism.

It's ironic that you're saying this given the points you're making below. Let's go through them:

Are kernel mode drives maybe a bad idea? Yes!

You can't have a EDR product that isn't kernel mode. Otherwise it's trivial for malware to evade (eg. by being kernel mode themselves).

Should Windows be able to automatically roll back if a kernel mode driver fails? Yes!

see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41019743

Should hospitals, police stations, airlines, etc be testing any and all updates that come their way prior to releasing them onto the rest of their fleets? Yes!

Getting companies to test updates is already like pulling teeth. Besides, crowdstrike said the update they pushed was "designed to target newly observed, malicious named pipes being used by common C2 frameworks in cyberattacks". Is this something you really want to sit on for testing, which might take weeks or months?

Windows should not be the foundation upon which critical infrastructure is built. It is a bad OS. It is a rickety, insecure mess; this observation (note that I did not say opinion) has only ever increased with time.
The NT kernel, I hear, is great. I generally trust those who say this, as they tend to be demonstrably much smarter than I am, especially with regards to kernel design, which is something I know next to nothing about.
But Windows? Nah man. Maybe there's a good kernel running the show, but the OS as a whole is a shitshow.

What specific security issues do you think windows/NT kernel has? Moreover, how is windows being a "shitshow" relevant to the question of resiliency or dependence? Don't get me wrong, windows spying on you or using dark patterns to get you to use Edge or whatever isn't great, but it's a weird thing to bring up in a discussion about how airports run on windows, and reeks of "don't let a disaster go to waste" on the part of the anti-windows tribe.

averageRoyalty4• 2 years ago

But as you've outlined multiple times, the flaws of the OS are not the problem here. Changing OS, the same poor decisions can and have been made. Windows can be locked down or configured to a very stable level, and Linux can be configured to a shitshow.

I don't like Windows, but embedded edition has been the most common operating system you encounter in the physical world for decades, and broadly it works so well you don't know. I don't see a good argument that something on the Windows end needs fixing here.

fredski42• 2 years ago

Totally agree here. There should be a mechanism to go back to ‘last known good’ regardless of kernel level issues. Innovations like Fedora Silverblue with ostree and greenboot tech should be adopted by Windows.

AstralStorm4• 2 years ago

Windows specifically does not allow automated rollback in case of boot drivers because:

a) that generally does not work, because the driver is required to boot into recovery environment

b) even if it did, for security like this, downgrade attacks are a consideration

and most importantly

c) in this case, Windows does not have a full backup of previous external configuration because this was not a driver update

mixmastamyk• 2 years ago

Besides cloud outages, there's also been quite a few security disasters recently, one with the Russians all up in Uncle Sam's business.

There's no reason for MS to have such a lock on governments, when their security and reliability is worst in the industry among BigTech. Even "Blue Hat" could do better.

dissent2• 2 years ago

I go the other way, it's absolutely their fault. Their historical business model of monopolizing the enterprise while outsourcing security is at the root of all this. The same thing could happen with Crowdstrike on other platforms, but it's only on Windows where these suites are considered essential.

gruez16• 2 years ago

but it's only on Windows where these suites are considered essential.

They're "considered essential" for all corporate machines for compliance and CYA reasons. If you're the CISO/CTO and a hack occurred on your watch, do you really want to be the one telling the board that you didn't need EDR on your linux machines because linux is secure?

jenscow• 2 years ago

Many in this industry have been saying this for a while now.

"I think that I am familiar with the fact that you are going to ignore this particular problem until it swims up and bites you on the ass."

AlexDragusin• 2 years ago

airlines in India handed out handwritten plane tickets https://x.com/akothari/status/1814202068531552666

xnx• 2 years ago

Did Crowdstrike PR write this?

russellbeattie2• 2 years ago

Microsoft's culpability lies in the fact that their OS is still ridiculously brittle. How it can't seem to manage to be able to automatically roll back changes from something as serious as a kernel change is ludicrous.

It's CrowdStrike's fault that the kernel was faulty. It's Microsoft's fault that it caused a never ending bootloop that needed manual intervention to fix.

jborean93• 2 years ago

The update wasn’t actually a kernel driver but a configuration file. While I agree that there should be some changes to mitigate such problems it was a policy/config file that the existing untouched driver was reading and then causing the crash (so no restore point was created).

jenadine• 2 years ago

From what I understand, the problem was not caused by an update of the driver itself, but an update of a config file that the driver uses. As an OS author, how could you possibly know what to rollback when this is just an unrelated file fron a third party? Maybe you could try to rollback the whole file system to a previous snapshot? Assuming the file system supports automated snapshots, that might work, but this also has costs.

russellbeattie2• 2 years ago

Oh, I didn't know that it was just a config file, thanks. I'm not sure if this makes it better though. The idea that an update to a single text file used by a third party Windows service can take down the whole OS permanently is a bit extreme, no?

Windows BSODs have been a reality for a long as it has existed. There's no reason at this point any third party software should be able to cause it. Hardware fault? Sure. Badly installed or configured driver? Crazy.

amluto2• 2 years ago

I’m not a regulator, but I think the solution may actually be to break up Microsoft.

Right now, there is a product that is critical to the economy: Windows. By “Windows” I mean the OS, its security mechanisms, and its update mechanisms. Changing Windows to a multi-source model seems challenging, to say the least. Right now, though, Windows is not merely single-source, but that single source also makes OneDrive, Office, a not-very-secure cloud offering, ads, AI, etc. Most of the revenue comes from crap layered on top of Windows.

If just the base Windows were split out, then the company behind it could focus on making a secure base. Maybe they could actively mitigate attacks, even from the rest of the layers (e.g. the “AI” recording crap, OneDrive, telemetry, etc). And maybe CrowdStrike would become unnecessary because the Windows company itself could offer adequate endpoint security.

Getting this right would be hard, but having the base OS for much of the world in the hands of Microsoft is not going so well.

jacooper• 2 years ago

Ironically I think Microsoft losing windows won't hurt them that much, it will however benefit consumers for sure.

seanmcdirmid• 2 years ago

I don’t think Windows would survive for very long without other Microsoft businesses subsidizing their revenue. It might go on for a few years, but it would basically move up Linux and OSX quickly to corporate desktop status, while Windev goes bankrupt as a non-viable business.

TeaBrain• 2 years ago

This is the narrative that Crowdstrike wants the public to believe. Crowdstrike did the same thing to Debian machines running their software previously. The use of these kernel-level security software packages with arguably negligible benefit compared to the experienced risks could instead be reassessed.

yjftsjthsd-h• 2 years ago

AIUI new Debian supports enough ebpf that it doesn't need an unsandboxed kernel module, which is a useful point of comparison. Though yeah, an OS can only do so much to limit a problem running with root, and security software legitimately needs a lot of power.

eddyg• 2 years ago

Not just Debian. RHEL too.

Kernel panic observed after booting 5.14.0-427.13.1.el9_4.x86_64 by falcon-sensor process : https://access.redhat.com/solutions/7068083

number6• 2 years ago

There was also a Microsoft 365 outage. On the other hand is Microsoft also known to push faulty updates

shadowgovt2• 2 years ago

In related news, auto manufacturers under fire after aftermarket modifications to mufflers cause engines to burst into flames.

Seriously, I don't know what Microsoft was supposed to do about this. People bought an operating system from them, then they gave a third party permission to modify the internals of that operating system's configuration, then those modifications broke their installations. Where is the regulatory intervention story regarding how Microsoft's behavior should change here?

penguin_booze• 2 years ago

The saving grace is that this situation was salvageable by mortals.

Imagine the world where black box AI systems are deployed, and humanity gets too cozy and complicit with the amenities it offers--too lazy and too convenient to care. Then suddenly, a BSoD-equivalent happens. And nobody knows how to reason with it--or worse, through it; and nobody knows how write a 'hello world' nor to fire up a debugger any more.

Microsoft's global sprawl under fire from regulators after Windows outage

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