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CrowdStrike downtime apparently caused by update that replaced a file with 42kb of zeroes (twiiit.com)

submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

190 comments fedilink hide all child comments

…according to a Twitter post by the Chief Informational Security Officer of Grand Canyon Education.

So, does anyone else find it odd that the file that caused everything CrowdStrike to freak out, C-00000291-
00000000-00000032.sys was 42KB of blank/null values, while the replacement file C-00000291-00000000-
00000.033.sys was 35KB and looked like a normal, if not obfuscated sys/.conf file?

Also, apparently CrowdStrike had at least 5 hours to work on the problem between the time it was discovered and the time it was fixed.

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[+] [email protected] -11 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (5 children)

No try-catch, no early exit condition checking and return, just nuke the system and start over?

[–] [email protected] 22 points 3 months ago

what do you propose, run faulty code that could maybe actually nuke your system, not just memory but storage as well?

[–] kogasa 17 points 3 months ago

Catch and then what? Return to what?

[–] ChairmanMeow 11 points 3 months ago

Windows assumes that you installed that AV for a reason. If it suddenly faults, who's to say it's a bug and not some virus going ham on the AV? A BSOD is the most graceful exit you could do, ignoring and booting a potentially compromised system is a fairly big no-no (especially in systems that feel the need to install AV like this in the first place).

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago

A page fault can be what triggers a catch, but you can't unwind what a loaded module (the Crowdstrike driver) did before it crashed. It could have messed with Windows kernel internals and left them in a state that is not safe to continue. Rather than potentially damage the system, Windows stops with a BSOD. The only solution would be to not allow code to be loaded into the kernel at all, but that would make hardware drivers basically impossible.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago

BSOD is the ultimate catch statement of the OS. It will gracefully close all open data streams and exit. Of course it is not the usual exit so it gives a graphic representation of what not have gone wrong.

If it would have been nuking it wouldn't show anything.