Speaking of CloudStrike

[BobH]

Can someone please tell me what it is (presumably an app) and what it does and what happened to cause all the problems?

I read a blurb in my morning birdcage liner purportedly from CloudStrike that used a lot of words but informed me not at all.

[StuartR]

Cloudstrike is a cyber security service that helps to protect computers from all sorts of threats. You could think of it as anti-virus on steroids.

It has three main components. A software product that runs on the computer that it is protecting, a cloud service that analyses and responds to threats, and data files that enable the software to identify emerging threats. The data files are updated very frequently as threats become known. The recent problem was caused by a faulty data file, that triggered a latent design flaw in the software on the affected computers. This prevented those computers from booting up, so there was no way to back out the data file without manual intervention.

[stuck]

As I understand it...

Cloudstrike are BIG in IT security, and they are used by lots of BIG IT companies, notably MS. They released an update to their 'Falcon' software which contained a BAD bug, as in seriously BAD. This caused the Enterprise version of Windows, i.e. the version behind vast numbers of corporate systems and but in particular the systems used by airports, to blue screen. End result just, about every airport on the planet couldn't function and here in the UK our National Health Service was seriously crippled.

The fix was simple but required a human being to sit at every affected PC and apply that fix. This meant it took a looooooooong time to undo the mess caused by one bad file.

Those of us not reliant on BIG corporate IT systems were not impacted, unless we were trying to use an airport or had an appointment with a medic in the UK the day it happened.

The latest on the saga is that Cloudstrike have offered compensation for the chaos they caused but people are not happy with what they are offering. Read why on the BBC News website:
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce58p0048r0o

Ken

[StuartR]

Ken, this was NOT a software update. It was a data file.

[stuck]

Oh, OK, thanks for the clarification

Ken

[BobH]

Thanks for the education.

The article I read said that they would stop the practice of rolling out updates en masse. In future they will roll out the updates on a limited basis to be sure that all the world is not affected adversely at the same time should there be a bug like this again. The article didn't elaborate, but the essence of the message was that' to err is human but to really foul up requires computers.'

Ken, many hospitals and clinics in the US were affected. Our local mega health care system - more than 2,000 doctors - was affected. They use a system called Epic for all patient care records. When it failed, they had manual back up procedures in place. The major problem was that doctors and nurse could not see all the patient information in one place, which is what Epic allows them to do. This slowed down treatment and even caused some patients to be turned away, but none with 'critical' problems.

[ChrisGreaves]

Can someone please tell me what it is (presumably an app) and what it does and what happened to cause all the problems?

What is it?
It is a faulty antivirus definition file released from a third-party vendor that triggered BSODs on Windows computers.
It is impacting all customers with CrowdStrike software installed.
It is not a Windows bug. Microsoft did not trigger this problem.
It’s hard to see how this could be caused by anything other than a complete lack of testing.
It does not affect Linux or macOS.

Because this is not a Microsoft or Windows problem, I am not changing the MS-DEFCON level.

This from Susan Bradley on the Ask Woody newsletter of 20th July. MY EMPHASIS.
Cheers, Chris

[BobH]

So if Linux and Apple's mac os were not affected, how can it be truthfully declared that WIndows is not part of the problem? It seems to me that Windows was adversely affected by an event or by data that other operating systems handled without fault; ergo, Windows has a problem that needs attention.

What is wrong with my logic? What am I missing?

[HansV]

It occurred in Windows but it was not due to a mistake in Windows itself.

[Leif]

What am I missing?

Assume that McAfee* was only available for Windows platforms.
McAfee push out data which causes the PCs it is installed on to hang.
Because McAfee is not installed on any other platform, only Windows PCs are affected.

*Other software is available. Thankfully.