back to article CrowdStrike shares sink as global IT outage savages systems worldwide

CrowdStrike's share price is currently tanking amid a major global IT outage its leadership has attributed to a dodgy channel file. At the time of writing, the share price is down more than 19 percent as the security shop to some of the biggest organizations in the world continues to work through issues with its customers. …

  1. John Miles

    When I searched google news for Crowdstrike a couple of hours go i came across this CrowdStrike stock could drop to $275 amid valuation concerns, analyst warns from yesterday - so what did Redburn Atlantic know?

    1. Mr Sceptical
      Mushroom

      Quiet in the comments - is everyone busy firefighting?

      The Reddit Crowdstrike thread has gone nuts with horror stories, poor BOFHs looking at 1000s of endpoints in boot loops. Glad we don't use it, bullet dodged even for our small footprint...

      My condolences to those looking at RSI from entering zillions of bitlocker keys.

      Had a call with a client; "can we reschedule to next week, we use Crowdstrike." = Weekend ruined

      1. cyberdemon Silver badge
        FAIL

        Re: Quiet in the comments - is everyone busy firefighting?

        > My condolences to those looking at RSI from entering zillions of bitlocker keys.

        Wait, the workaround trips BitLocker? Argh

        So for some, CloudStrike has turned Microsoft into an inept but large ransomware gang?

        Where's my BitLocker key? It's somewhere in AzureAD.. Which one is for this server? Err ..

        1. BartyFartsLast Silver badge

          Re: Quiet in the comments - is everyone busy firefighting?

          It doesn't trip it but to remove the file that's causing the client to bootloop you need to boot a recovery environment and the only way to access a Bitlocker encrypted filesystem from there is to enter the 48 digit recovery key.

    2. Dog Eatdog

      Probably nothing. That was a medium term forecast.No forecast of a sudden drop.

    3. herman Silver badge
      Devil

      Oops

      Oops, this bug was supposed to only affect travel to Milwaukee!

  2. PeeKay

    There's something familiar about all of this...

    I remember McAfee deploying an update that basically removed a key boot file from all windows machines (around the 2000's).

    That was *not* a good day to be in IT.

    McAfee have been on my shit list ever since.

    1. Ramis101

      Re: There's something familiar about all of this...

      I Missed that one, but around that time McRappy put out a DAT that deleted excel.exe

      Easily fixed when i got in, but they will always be McRappy to me for that.

      1. Elongated Muskrat Silver badge

        Re: There's something familiar about all of this...

        To be fair, deleting excel.exe is probably a good measure to improve organisational efficiency. I was literally only just having a conversation with someone about why Excel should be destroyed with fire, and then the ashes launched into the sun (and only then because there aren't any convenient black holes close enough by to dispose of it there).

        1. Elongated Muskrat Silver badge

          Re: There's something familiar about all of this...

          https://ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/i-will-fucking-dropkick-you-if-you-use-that-spreadsheet/

          Anyone who disagrees with me can go along for the trip. I'm sorry it has come to this, but it's for the good of humanity.

          1. Eclectic Man Silver badge

            Re: There's something familiar about all of this...

            I read the linked article.

            I will now have nightmares about AI writing Excel spreadsheets. LLMs were only the beginning ...

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: There's something familiar about all of this...

              > I will now have nightmares about AI writing Excel spreadsheets.

              Only now? How have you been sleeping peacefully for the last three days?

              You know what spreadsheets need? LLMs, says Microsoft

              1. Eclectic Man Silver badge

                Re: There's something familiar about all of this...

                1. I retired in 2018

                2. I have lots of other nightmares queuing up, so AI will have to wait for its turn.

                3. I had a medium* operation on Monday which has pretty much wiped me out physically.

                *Not major, but not minor either. A reasonably standard procedure, but involving a general anaesthetic and an overnight stay, plus I am not allowed to lift anything heavier than a dull kettle for 6 weeks.

                1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

                  Re: There's something familiar about all of this...

                  "I am not allowed to lift anything heavier than a dull kettle for 6 weeks."

                  You should have got the doctor to write a note saying you aren't even allowed to lift a kettle. Then you can get somebody else to make the tea.

                  Keep well.

                  1. Eclectic Man Silver badge

                    Re: There's something familiar about all of this...

                    Thanks, Doctor Syntax.

                    Sadly as I live alone I am the only one allowed to lift the kettle.

                    However, after spending yesterday afternoon and this morning at the SAU (Surgical Assessment Unit), I was pronounced fine-ish - my current latest discomfort will abate all by itself, in 3 to 4 weeks according to Dr Mahmoud (lovely warm hands, I mean really warm, a definite plus when you are as ticklish as I am).

                    Still not allowed to drive for a while though.

          2. ecofeco Silver badge
            Mushroom

            Re: There's something familiar about all of this...

            I see you got your share of M$ fanbois downvotes.

            Have my upvote. Every word of that blog is gospel truth.

            1. Elongated Muskrat Silver badge

              Re: There's something familiar about all of this...

              I certainly seem to have demonstrated that spreadsheet jockeys are not only extremely defensive of their previous Excel, but also completely lacking in a sense of humour.

              In all seriousness, though, the number of times in my career where Excel turned out to be the right tool for the job can be counted on the fingers of one hand. It is always a "quick'n'dirty" stopgap measure that ends up being bent into something more, and which manages to be nothing other than an administrative overhead.

              1. Elongated Muskrat Silver badge

                Re: There's something familiar about all of this...

                s/previous/precious/

                I need to start getting more sleep on Sunday nights.

          3. parrot

            Re: There's something familiar about all of this...

            “Beyond this lies naught but trying to work out why all the numbers are wrong, only to realize that Excel thought those IDs were integers and dropped all the leading zeroes.”

            This should come with a trigger warning.

        2. KittenHuffer Silver badge

          Re: There's something familiar about all of this...

          Technically the Sun is our nearest, most available blackbody. Which for the required result would be just as effective.

          1. Elongated Muskrat Silver badge

            Re: There's something familiar about all of this...

            I want something with a Schwartzchild Radius to make sure there's no chance of information escape. You know, just to be on the safe side, just in case there's some massive solar prominence in the future that looks for all the world like it spells out "VLOOKUP" in the sky.

            1. nematoad Silver badge
              Pint

              Re: There's something familiar about all of this...

              Have an up vote and a pint on me for the Schwartzchild Radius quote.

              Made me laugh and God knows I need it just now with a seven month old Malinois puppy running me ragged.

              Oh, and I'm very glad that I am retired and outside the blast zone for this balls-up.

            2. that one in the corner Silver badge

              Re: There's something familiar about all of this...

              > I want something with a Schwartzchild Radius to make sure there's no chance of information escape.

              Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but according to The Holographic Principle

              >> the information content of all the objects that have fallen into the hole might be entirely contained in surface fluctuations of the event horizon.

              One day, those fluctuations will be readable, imprinted on the Gravity Waves and propagated across the Universe.

              Better to chuck it into the Sun and have it all drowned out by the thermal noise.

              1. Elongated Muskrat Silver badge

                Re: There's something familiar about all of this...

                My understanding of the Holographic Principle is that it applies only within the event horizon; light, and thus information, can't escape the event horizon, but to an observer within it, information coming from any point within that sphere can appear to be indeterminable from that coming from a point on its surface, or something like that.

                From an outside observer, the Holographic principle would surely only mean that it's impossible to tell whether the "surface" of the event horizon is black, or everything within it (ignoring for a moment that the curvature of space caused by the singularity would probably mean that all you see is a distorted view of what is behind it anyway).

                As for information escaping an event horizon, there is a possible mechanism through Hawking Radiation, although how information might be exchanged between a particle falling into the black hole, and one escaping it, in any meaningful way, remains to be explained.

            3. Roland6 Silver badge
              Joke

              Re: There's something familiar about all of this...

              > I want something with a Schwartzchild Radius to make sure there's no chance of information escape

              Seems like a proble that can be solved with a spreadsheet or two…

    2. mevets

      Re: There's something familiar about all of this...

      Seems visionary. I bet there was no safer day for Windows machines than that.

    3. Pascal Monett Silver badge

      I'm guessing CrowdStrike's share price is not the only thing that is going to be tanking in the coming weeks.

      The fallout from this is starting to look like it will draw blood. CloudStrike's client list is going to shrink worse than a banana in the desert sun.

      1. cyberdemon Silver badge
        Alien

        > CloudStrike's client list is going to shrink worse than a banana in the desert sun.

        And the Client List on the class-action suit will be growing like ... an infestation of Tribbles in the cargo hold

        .. Tribbles all-round for the lawyers

    4. smudge

      Re: There's something familiar about all of this...

      I remember McAfee deploying an update that basically removed a key boot file from all windows machines (around the 2000's).

      I was working for Logica at the time. It bricked most of the PCs and laptops in the company.

      Fortunately, I was out of the office and offline that day, so I missed the update. And I made damn sure that the issue had been corrected before I reconnected to the company network!

      1. Martin J Hooper

        Re: There's something familiar about all of this...

        Apparently the boss of McAfee at the time that happened is now the boss at Crowdstrike....

    5. David Hicklin Bronze badge

      Re: There's something familiar about all of this...

      At some point any software that has rapid, regular automatic updates is going to screw up, it is only a matter of time.....and how bad it is.

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: There's something familiar about all of this...

        It depends on whether or not you take precautions. One might be to test before deploying, another might be to wait a day to see if any adverse reports roll in. I guess any Cloudstrike customers who adopted either approach won't be rolling it out today.

        1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

          Re: There's something familiar about all of this...

          Is that even possible with CrowdStrike? I note that my company phone gets Teams updates over which I have no control whatsoever. It's not a managed phone, I had to install Teams myself from the app store. But every now and then I go to Teams and it tells me that an update has been installed and "we are getting things ready for you". It looks to me like Ms & Teams are by-passing both the app store and consent and forcibly updating the app whether I like it or not. Every other app on the phone, I get app store notifications when there are updates available and I get to choose if I install them.

          1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

            Re: There's something familiar about all of this...

            >I get to choose if I install them.

            So if there is a zero day exploit that is going to ransomware your entire multinational - you want to leave it to each desktop user to decide if they know better than Microsoft about the fix ?

            1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

              Re: There's something familiar about all of this...

              There are these old-fashioned things called IT departments. As this seems to be a product aimed at big corporates there's a fair chance their customers still have them. Not guaranteed these days, but a fair chance. The IT department does the test and makes the decision on behalf of its users - and does the roll-out. I suppose they could still roll out something they know will bork all the workstations on the grounds that it will keep out ransomware but at least it becomes a deliberate choice.

            2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

              Re: There's something familiar about all of this...

              No, not necessarily, but in that situation, I want the server admins to be able to get the fix, test it and choose to deploy it. A zero-day ransomware is a risk that might be worth taking for a few hours or a day if it's been shown the fix is a guaranteed clusterfuck. The customer gets to test and choose, not the vendor. I'm ok with auto-install as the default, but prefer a way to switch that off. Corporate used should be managed by corporate IT, not by the vendor. Vendors don't test as thoroughly as they should, we know that. In fact it's been demonstrated many times by borked "updates" being pushed out causing much expense and difficulties for the end users and admins. Looking at you MS, who not so long ago fucked up the core printing subsystem for many users.

              Here's a thought. MS run two different update servers, one releasing updates a day after the other. You choose which one to default to, with possibly only the absolutely most vital patches being pushed out ASAP to all users. That way even home users get the option to only install "tested" updates because, as the Windows Insider Program demonstrates, there are plenty of people willing to be free MS QA testers.

              1. Dimmer Silver badge

                Re: There's something familiar about all of this...

                Microsoft had a patch for the zero day print driver exploit months before it was released. If you had the special $$$$ contract you get those patches.

                I know someone that got hit by it and WAS patched up to date and they withheld the patch.

                Have you ever noticed how their cloud products seem to be have patches way before your on prem doesn’t?

                They want that monthly cloud money.

                1. Roland6 Silver badge

                  Re: There's something familiar about all of this...

                  I take it that MS aren’t a customer of CrowdStrike…

            3. Elongated Muskrat Silver badge

              Re: There's something familiar about all of this...

              If there's a new "feature" patch from MS that is badly written and contains a flaw, thus producing a future zero-day exploit, then you're fine with that being automatically rolled onto your device with no interaction? That knife cuts both ways.

              The main thing that I hate about "SaaS" is that you have no control over when or how the software you use changes arbitrarily, often forcing unexpected downtime while it updates, or causing lost productivity while you re-learn it.

          2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

            Re: There's something familiar about all of this...

            "Is that even possible with CrowdStrike?"

            If it's not then perhaps the DPP should be checking to see if there's an offence under the Computer Misuse Act.

          3. Tricky-Tribble

            Re: There's something familiar about all of this...

            Teams can be controlled, which ring and which release cycle, so yes you can be bleeding edge or safer and well behind.

            1. Elongated Muskrat Silver badge

              Re: There's something familiar about all of this...

              So; update you don't want today, or update you don't want next week?

        2. Dimmer Silver badge

          Re: There's something familiar about all of this...

          That option is being removed quickly.

          Just as a test, fire up Wireshark and filter the background noise. Then load any application and watch it phone home and download changes.

          Another thing to watch is how windows, without authenticating can copy files between system even without being on the same domain. Only needs to be on the same network. It is part of the windows update. If you can find the setting, you can turn it off till the next update and it will be dutifully turned back on.

          1. Richard 12 Silver badge

            Re: There's something familiar about all of this...

            BITS - It's a slight variant of bittorrent.

            You can disable the upload side of it by marking all your networks as metered, but in a corporate network it's the only reason the office network survives Patch Tuesday.

    6. RedCatRockets

      Re: There's something familiar about all of this...

      Wonderful day... McAfee decided the NT Kernal was malware... mad rush round 000s of servers to put it back before someone rebooted

    7. John Smith 19 Gold badge
      Unhappy

      McAfee have been on my shit list ever since.

      rightly so.

      I've heard Norton described as "like malware "

      If BOFH's everywhere would blacklist a company or product and simply state "Due to the know f**kups they've caused I am not dealing with them. Choose someone else."

      1. Elongated Muskrat Silver badge

        Re: McAfee have been on my shit list ever since.

        I've heard Norton described as "like malware "

        There's a reason it's known as "Notrun," as in "it makes a computer not run".

    8. ecofeco Silver badge

      Re: There's something familiar about all of this...

      George Kurtz, who is the CEO for Clownstrike, was, wait for, wait for it... the CTO at McAfee at that time.

  3. s. pam
    Black Helicopters

    things that are running

    are on Unix or Mainframes (remember them)!!

    funny enough at £dayjob all the Mac users are able to carry on, with the exception that our files are stored on OneDrive/SharePoint due to IT locking our machines w/ JAMF so we're screwed too.

    time to head to the garage to put new spark plugs in our very analogue Triumph car

    1. Atomic Duetto

      Re: things that are running

      Until 2038… when it will be a surprise for everybody (and nobody here).

      1. lordminty

        Re: things that are running

        2038 won't break mainframes running proprietary mainframe OSes like z/OS.

        1. Killdolly

          Re: things that are running

          .. or z/VM (The mother of all Hypervisors) or indeed zLinux - still around.

          1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

            Re: things that are running

            2038 might still break Lucas electronics in an old Triumph

            The trick is that they aren't actual using an OS with a clock - but still managed to make them fail in 2028 !

      2. VicMortimer Silver badge

        Re: things that are running

        Yes, 2038 is going to be really annoying for everybody still running Mac OS X 10.5 and earlier.

        And 2040 is going to be really annoying for everybody still running Mac OS X 10.13 and earlier.

        So... me (assuming I'm not dead yet) and other vintage Mac geeks. I mean, it's not that the machines won't boot, they just won't have correct dates. But most folks aren't likely to be running pre-2017 Mac OS in 2040 or pre-10.6 in 2038.

        (It uses 64-bit dates now. So there's a Y292,277,026,596 problem. Humanity is unlikely to have to worry about it.)

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: things that are running

          "Humanity is unlikely to have to worry about it." That's the attitude that got us into the Y2K problems. /S

          1. R Soul Silver badge

            Re: things that are running

            Well, I plan to be around in Y292,277,026,596 to find out one way or the other.

            FWIW, I'd still be waiting for Beardienet customer service to answer the phone then.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: things that are running

          > So there's a Y292,277,026,596 problem. Humanity is unlikely to have to worry about it.

          Word to the wise: Singularity.

          You don't want to be the only one left behind, do you.

      3. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: things that are running

        "Until 2038… when it will be a surprise for everybody"

        Not everybody - just you if don't realise that time_t has mostly - if not entirely - been upgraded to 64-bits already.

        1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

          Re: things that are running

          On desktop and servers - yes

          On embedded systems in anti-lock brakes, traffic lights, sewage systems and McDonalds ice cream machines - not so much

          1. Richard 12 Silver badge

            Re: things that are running

            Depends whether the absolute datetime matters.

            Most embedded systems really don't care what the date is. They might have a clock but it's only 12 or 24 hours.

            Lots of systems use the date purely for display purposes. So the displayed date will be the wrong year, and it'll get leap years wrong.

            A few systems have watchdogs or other subsystems that require now > then. Those will crash as it rolls over, and be fine after reboot.

          2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

            Re: things that are running

            The nearest traffic lights to me - please bork them. Everyone agrees traffic flows much better when they're out of action

            I don't think I'd want anything from any of McDonald's machines but from what I hear perhaps it would fix them.

            Sewage systems, yes might be a problem.

            But would any embedded systems old enough to have a 32-bit time_t still be working by then?

    2. The Oncoming Scorn Silver badge
      Windows

      Re: things that are running

      Triumph Herald, Stag, TRx?

      Icon - Former grey haired Triumph owner wants to know.

      1. HKmk23

        Re: things that are running

        What about my Vitesse and my Spitfire.....

        1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

          Re: things that are running

          Or a Dolly?

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    > Early reporting from national media organizations misattributed the IT issues to Microsoft

    Isn't this always the case? Even going way back in the 90s people would blame Windows for constantly BSOD'ing when in reality they decided to get the cheapest eMachines computer they could buy, made with capacitors that decided for themselves if they wanted to work that day or not.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Sure, let's pretend that it was eMachines hardware and not Windoze. Even though the BSOD was incredibly common on EVERY Windoze computer, it was all because of crappy eMachines capacitors.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Sure, let's pretend that we bothered to read the comment before replying and it wasn't us completely missing the point:

        That we all KNEW Windows would BSOD at the drop of a hat or ill-timed sneeze, so it became the habit to blame EVERY problem on Windows, EVEN when it was so blatant a hardware issue as cheap crapacitors.

    2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      "Isn't this always the case?"

      It's the default assumption. What does that tell us?

      1. doublelayer Silver badge

        That if there are repeated instances of this assumption that turn out to be wrong, then the assumption is probably bad and people are sticking with it out of habit and getting themselves into error? Isn't that what you do with assumptions which are repeatedly wrong?

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    If the shares were part-paid

    the stock price would have the potential to go negative,

    1. hoola Silver badge

      Re: If the shares were part-paid

      It should be dropping even faster, it is all based on the ARR of subscriptions.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Payback time for automation

    and an inevitable side-effect of centralization. Maybe not that costly, considering long term savings.

  7. ITMA Silver badge
    Devil

    Clusterf*ck or what?

    I find it both amusing and ironic that on the main page of CrowdStrike's website they have a pic of some SciFi baddy (looks like it is taken from some game art) along with the prophetic words:

    "62 minutes could bring your business down.

    That’s the average time it takes an adversary to land and move laterally through your network. When your data, reputation, and revenue are at stake, trust the pioneer in adversary intelligence."

    Oh how right they are!

    https://www.crowdstrike.com/en-gb/

    Perhaps they should have replaced "an adversary" with "us".

    1. wolfetone Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: Clusterf*ck or what?

      I mean, to be fair, if the computer is down and inaccessible then the hacker can't access your data...

    2. nematoad Silver badge
      FAIL

      Re: Clusterf*ck or what?

      What's that old phrase that used to be about?

      Ah, I know, "Single Point of Failure."

      Surely we've got a bit better at IT since then.

      1. TimMaher Silver badge
        Windows

        Re: SPOF

        And don’t forget the SPOK (Single Point Of Knowledge).

        You know the one.

        Phil, in the basement. Wearing a filthy T shirt and a mustard stained beard.

        Surrounded by a pile of empty burger boxes and workstations, each with a minimum of two screens.

        See right ——->

      2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: Clusterf*ck or what?

        "Surely we've got a bit better at IT since then."

        We sure have. Now we have lots and lots of SPOFs.

    3. ITMA Silver badge
      Devil

      Re: Clusterf*ck or what?

      What a surprise - that part of their main page has been removed LOL

  8. anthonyhegedus Silver badge

    The fault's with Microsoft

    Yes the root cause is Crowdstrike. But let's be clear on this, the OS is Microsoft's. Why do we put up with an OS that can be felled by one program with a problem? Why can't the OS have a fallback to automatically roll back during a boot loop?

    We've probably all seen Windows 10 or 11 fail to boot and then say "repairing" and more often than not just fail. This isn't really acceptable any longer. Microsoft needs to up their game and start making their OS reliable and resilient. It should not be possible for security software to break the system like it seems to have done for countless desktops and servers around the world.

    1. David Taylor 1

      Re: The fault's with Microsoft

      It has to be possible for security software to break the system -- that's what it's supposed to do (in specific and limited ways) when it detects malware.

      Without the ability to filter low-level system operations it can't detect and disable malware.

      With that ability, any software defects can be disastrous.

      1. ecofeco Silver badge

        Re: The fault's with Microsoft

        Your wearing your glasses backwards.

    2. Wiretrip

      Re: The fault's with Microsoft

      Agreed, mostly... But to be fair I have seen Linux machines brought down by botched updates loads of times (often due to insufficient space in the /boot partition). I have also have many brushes with boot loops in both Android and iOS phones.

      1. ecofeco Silver badge

        Re: The fault's with Microsoft

        True, but the problem is far more prevalent with M$ and it's not just because of shear numbers deployed.

      2. werdsmith Silver badge

        Re: The fault's with Microsoft

        "sudo apt update"

        "19 packages can be upgraded. Run 'apt list --upgradable to them."

        I'm scared.

      3. driodsworld@gmail.com

        Re: The fault's with Microsoft

        insufficient space in the /boot partition ---> that was a stuff lesson for me

    3. Kubla Cant

      Re: The fault's with Microsoft

      I can only refer you to Joe Tidy, the BBC "Cyber correspondent". He says They have "god-like" access to all the inner workings of an IT system for obvious reasons..

      Mind you, I don't think Joe is really a techie. His next paragraph tells us that "End Point Protection" programmes have to be able to monitor the inner workings of computers. Back in the last century it was not unknown for reactionary UK crusties to try to insist on spelling "program" that way, but I don't think I've seen it for at least 40 years.

      1. Sir Sham Cad

        Re: The fault's with Microsoft

        Joe Tidy is a BBC Correspondent. He Writes for the Lusers. So, yeah, he's vaugewashing the reporting which is a bit infuriating but I'm not his audience.

        1. RegGuy1 Silver badge

          Re: The fault's with Microsoft

          But who watches the BBC any more?

          Opps, sorry, I forgot. Mostly pensioners.

          1. petef

            Re: The fault's with Microsoft

            People who normally watch Sky?

          2. Hubert Cumberdale Silver badge

            Re: The fault's with Microsoft

            "But who watches the BBC any more?"

            People who want their news as un-slanted as possible and as verified as possible. Yes, that makes it a bit boring (I go elsewhere to find out the rumours they're not telling me), but it is the most reliable and unbiased source we've got. And you – yes you, spitting your tea at the screen and laughing with incredulity – I challenge you to point me to a more unbiased general news source in the UK. It's not perfect by any means, but it's a start.

            I expect downvotes.

            1. Hubert Cumberdale Silver badge

              Re: The fault's with Microsoft

              (And I'll count downvotes that aren't backed up by a post actually pointing me to a more unbiased general news source in the UK as a direct admission that you can't. Downvotes on this post doubly so.)

              1. Like a badger

                Re: The fault's with Microsoft

                "Downvotes on this post doubly so"

                With an invitation like that, what choice did I have?

              2. qwerty360

                Re: The fault's with Microsoft

                I might raise bloomberg news as an alternative relatively unbiased news source.

                But it is slanted towards news for the financial sector and even more boring than the BBC...

                Turns out people investing large amounts of money want unbiased news, though it does need to cover what bias is being thrown around as well...

                (N.b. The BBC is biased; It is slightly biased towards the CURRENT UK government; I.e. it has spent the last 14 years being pro-tory; It will spend at least the next ~4 years pro labour. But it has far, far less bias than every other news source in the UK. Generally it doesn't take much looking to realise BOTH sides are regularly alleging that the BBC is biased, which is by far the strongest indicator that it isn't...)

                1. Hubert Cumberdale Silver badge

                  Re: The fault's with Microsoft

                  I appreciate your sensible response, and I mostly agree! Ad Fontes Media believes that Bloomberg is very slightly more left and very slightly less reliable than the BBC, but there really isn't much in it at all.

                  This is when someone will chime in saying that Ad Fontes Media is itself biased. For the record, much like the BBC, it gets shouted at from all sides, which is probably a good sign. Speaking to this person: if you'd prefer, you can refer to Alex Jones's chart, and I won't argue with you because – having been shunned by peers and teachers alike at school due to your inability to relate to people on a personal level – you've probably got a gun and a tendency to angry outbursts. Which clearly means you're right.

                2. Terry 6 Silver badge

                  Re: The fault's with Microsoft

                  Though Tory Laura seems to have contrived to boost UKIP Reform at every possible juncture.

                3. werdsmith Silver badge

                  Re: The fault's with Microsoft

                  The BBC receives a virtually equal number of complaints accusing it of being either left or right biased.

                  Which tells us all where the bias actually is.

                  1. Elongated Muskrat Silver badge

                    Re: The fault's with Microsoft

                    Towards those who complain the most?

            2. beast666

              Re: The fault's with Microsoft

              GB News.

              And you – yes you, spitting your tea at the screen and laughing with incredulity – I challenge you to wake your ass up.

              1. Casca Silver badge

                Re: The fault's with Microsoft

                Like you have? Spouting all the latest shit from twitter.

              2. Hubert Cumberdale Silver badge
                Coffee/keyboard

                Re: The fault's with Microsoft

                I'm going to assume this is deep trolling. There's simply no other logical explanation.

                1. Anonymous Coward
                  Anonymous Coward

                  Re: The fault's with Microsoft

                  > I'm going to assume this is deep trolling.

                  It would be nice to think so, but coming from someone who believes that Putin is the greatest leader and statesman of the 21st Century, we are faced with a TruFan here.

      2. spold Silver badge

        Re: The fault's with Microsoft

        When I were but knee high to a grasshopper a program was the new fangled computer thingy, and a programme was something you got at a theatre laying out the various acts. Similary, a programme was also a collection of activities that made up overarching initituative or agenda.

        I blame the left-pondians for adopting simplified English as usual.

        A programme can be applied to the various parts of a circus show... so perhaps it might be useful for the US to relearn this one following their election.

        1. nematoad Silver badge

          Re: The fault's with Microsoft

          I blame the left-pondians for adopting simplified English as usual.

          No, just blame Noah Webster, a man who hated the British so much that he tried to distance American English written after the American War of Independence as far from standard "King's English" as possible. Hence all the spelling mistakes. :-)

        2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

          Re: The fault's with Microsoft

          "I blame the left-pondians for adopting simplified English as usual."

          About 40-some years ago when taking Computer Studies at school aged 15-16, we were taught the American spellings for program and disk and encouraged to use them in relation to computers so as to distinguish the terms from the more everyday meanings in English. It seems entirely logical at the time. Then the Compact Disc came along and screwed up the logic!!

      3. Elongated Muskrat Silver badge

        Re: The fault's with Microsoft

        The last time I saw it written that way was when a school teacher incorrectly "corrected" the spelling in an essay I did about what we'd done at the weekend, when I was maybe 11 years old?

        It was enlightening in the sense that it taught me that teachers don't necessarily know what they are talking about, and that you shouldn't blindly trust authority figures, especially when they venture outside of their sphere of expertise. Whilst I'm not advocating going full flat-earther with the advice to question everything, you should be able to question anything you randomly feel like questioning that day...

      4. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Re: The fault's with Microsoft

        >They have "god-like" access to all the inner workings of an IT system

        True, but we aren't talking wooly liberal CofE gods.

        We are talking the ones with too many heads and limbs with extra teeth and decidedly non-noodly appendages

    4. ITMA Silver badge
      Devil

      Re: The fault's with Microsoft

      That is rather disingenuous.

      Anyone remember the unleaded fuel additive debacle several years ago where drivers would pull into (typically a supermarket) petrol station, fill up, then find their car majorly malfunctioned?

      Yes the engine stopped working, but that is only because of the crap additive in the fuel. You can't blame the manufacturer of the engine for that, they way you are blaming Microsoft for CrowdStrike's monumental f*ckup.

      1. anthonyhegedus Silver badge

        Re: The fault's with Microsoft

        A car engine is not an OS. It's so uncommon for petrol to be 'faulty' in that way that there were no safeguards built in. But if it was a common occurrence to get bad fuel, that could cause catastrophic engine damage, then the manufacturers could, if they could be bothered, put some failsafe in.

        I'm challenging the notion that OSes have to be able to be broken by anti-malware. Why? Why can't they be designed *better* so that the chances of them being broken by a faulty drive, or faulty antimalware, are **LOWER**?

        It happens far too often that Windows gets into boot loops after an update. The underlying OS is so full of holes, so flaky and so capricious in its nature that this can happen at all. These problems don't happen *despite* safeguards, they happen *because* of lack of safeguards and well-designed code.

        The elephant in the room is Microsoft's poor quality control (ok - and Crowdstrike's). We shouldn't stand for this intrinsic crappiness.

        1. Elongated Muskrat Silver badge

          Re: The fault's with Microsoft

          Okay, here's a better explanation of why you are wrong...

          An operating system would be pretty useless if it could only run software provided by the provider of the OS (although MS would probably love this, I shouldn't give them ideas).

          So, third-party software is allowed. For obvious reasons, it can't go near OS functions.

          Similarly, the OS should be able to run on a wide variety of hardware (unless you are Apple). It should not be incumbent on the maker of the OS to provide drivers for that hardware, so third-party drivers are needed.

          Those drivers need to have low-level access to parts of the OS, so the OS needs to trust them. This applies equally well to any general-purpose OS, not just Windows.

          Sadly, software flaws exist. Again, it would be poor form to not allow third parties to provide defence against these.

          Low-level system and antivirus software needs to interact with OS functions at a low level, so the OS needs to trust them. Again, this applies to any general-purpose OS.

          So, you have a situation where the OS doesn't normally allow access to, or interference with, some of its functions, except where it has to, in a limited way, for trusted third parties.

          CrowdStrike is (was?) in this instance a trusted third party. Now, trust in computing is a whole PhD thesis topic of its own, but your argument essentially boils down to a claim that MS is in the wrong for trusting CrowdStrike, whereas the more nuanced argument would be that CrowdStrike is in the wrong for not living up to the terms of that trust.

          1. QuiteEvilGraham

            Re: The fault's with Microsoft

            Agree 100%, I've been writing low-level system software for a different OS for around 35 years which can do basically anything possible on the hardware.

            We test it extensively before allowing it out to customers, but ours is an environment where our customers also understand the risks.

            We also run with the elevated privileges for precisely as long as is required to achieve whatever function we require. Thus far, we've never had a problem but I do ask our QA folks to always run with everything turned up to the max - better we find any problems before our customers do. We really do not want to find ourselves in a CrowdStrike-type situation; knocking over the entire OS is beyond the pale. Fortunately the one I work with is considerably more robust.

          2. werdsmith Silver badge

            Re: The fault's with Microsoft

            An operating system would be pretty useless if it could only run software provided by the provider of the OS

            Like a non-"smart" phone.

            1. doublelayer Silver badge

              Re: The fault's with Microsoft

              Yes, like that. If my laptop was like a non-smart phone, as in it can run the three programs that the manufacturer came up with, with the small subset of supported protocols that they chose to put in, and if I needed anything else at all I had to buy new hardware to get it, it would be a pretty bad laptop.

              1. werdsmith Silver badge

                Re: The fault's with Microsoft

                So the non-smartphone OS is useless.

                Thanks for letting me know.

                1. Elongated Muskrat Silver badge

                  Re: The fault's with Microsoft

                  Are you running a proprietary "non-smartphone" OS on a general purpose computer, such as a server in a data centre, or a work laptop?

                  Nope, didn't think so. You might as well be complaining that you don't need a CNC milling machine to hang a picture on your wall, because you've got a perfectly good hammer to bang a nail in with. That, good sir, is a non sequitur, if nobody was suggesting that you use said machine to do that with.

                  On the other hand, you probably could use your Nokia 3210 as a hammer.

                  1. werdsmith Silver badge

                    Re: The fault's with Microsoft

                    The comment I was responding to referred only to OS. Not specifically about the hardware platform.

                    So now you can tell me the Smartphone OS isn't an OS.

                    Whilst muttering under your breath and clicking the downvote.

      2. R Soul Silver badge

        Re: The fault's with Microsoft

        "You can't blame the manufacturer of the engine for that, they way you are blaming Microsoft for CrowdStrike's monumental f*ckup."

        But M$ are to blame. Third party code should never be able to crash an OS. Or run on an OS which allows that. CrowdStrike's crapware wouldn't be necessary if M$ shipped a decent OS that wasn't riddled with security vulnerabilities. CrowdStrike's epic, epic fail is unforgivable They deserve to be sued into oblivion for the inconvenience and consequential losses they caused. [They cost me thousands in cancelled/rebooked flights and hotels this weekend.] However, that's just a side-effect of the underlying disease.

        Nobody should be running anything important on Windows. Ever,

      3. Julian Poyntz

        Re: The fault's with Microsoft

        Then again, engines in cars can take a lot of crap fuel with no problems - see some 3rd world countries, so while you may alway get 95ron or above, in some places it is well under 90 - and the cars still pootle around.

        a really old disel should be fine no matter what - remember, his first design was to run on peanut oil

        1. DrollLeek

          Re: The fault's with Microsoft

          >a really old disel should be fine no matter what - remember, his first design was to run on peanut oil

          I used to run a Citroën BX on waste fat from my side job delivering Indian food in Chatham. It smelt a mix of amazing and deadly toxic.

          1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

            Re: The fault's with Microsoft

            But ran like the clappers every morning?

    5. picturethis
      Mushroom

      Re: The fault's with Microsoft

      "....But let's be clear on this, the OS is Microsoft's linux. Why do we put up with an OS that can be felled by one program with a problem?"

      You mean like... systemd?

      1. anthonyhegedus Silver badge

        Re: The fault's with Microsoft

        Oh yes, Linux isn't perfect by a long shot. But this should be a lesson to the Linux community too: STOP MAKING FLAKY OSES. OS design has come a long way in the last 50 years, but it's got to get better!

        1. Ian Johnston Silver badge

          Re: The fault's with Microsoft

          Absolutely. If Linux is so great, why do I get kernel upgrades twice a month on average?

          1. David Hicklin Bronze badge

            Re: The fault's with Microsoft

            > If Linux is so great, why do I get kernel upgrades twice a month on average?

            You are confusing system reliability with fixing of vulnerabilities that were found later down the line.....at least they are being fixed

            1. Elongated Muskrat Silver badge

              Re: The fault's with Microsoft

              One man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist.

              Please explain the difference between an issue with "system reliability" and a "vulnerability".

              Is the ability to bypass the login prompt in WinXp a system reliability issue, but a backdoor in the Unix login command a vulnerability that was found later down the line?

              Is it possible that people's judgement of where blame lies comes not from an objective assessment, but in a preconceived bias?

              Could it be, just maybe, that all software can have flaws in it, and those 1s and 0s that come from evil capitalist Microsoftland are indistinguishable from those that come from the Glorious Socialist People's Republic of Linuxania? (reductio ad absurdum here is merely for effect, and no political commentary is implied or should be inferred.)

              1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

                Re: The fault's with Microsoft

                Please explain the difference between an issue with "system reliability" and a "vulnerability".

                One is a subset of the other. A vulnerability is a susceptibility to an external - usually malicious occurrence. Other causes of system unreliability could be all sorts of things from inadequate memory provision upwards.

                1. Elongated Muskrat Silver badge

                  Re: The fault's with Microsoft

                  I'd argue that failing to incorporate handling of insufficient system memory into your design is a vulnerability, especially if it could be exploited, for example, to cause a denial-of-service attack.

                  This is my point, the terms "system reliability" and "vulnerability" are pretty vague, and mean different things to different folk, they're certainly not technical terms that carry a universal, agreed upon, and strictly defined meaning, and they carry a fair amount of subjective bias, especially in a field as complex as security.

          2. Inkey
            WTF?

            Re: The fault's with Microsoft

            Because kernel maintainers are constantly adding new hardware... they are new kernels and they are only installed once you choose the kernel you want

            Also you have the option of what level of updates

            you want....

            But if you are happy patching once a week you have at it.....christ would hate todo a roll back on m$ ...

      2. MrAptronym

        Re: The fault's with Microsoft

        It isn't really a reg comment thread until someone brings up systemd

        1. R Soul Silver badge

          Re: The fault's with Microsoft^wsystemd

          This has to be called Poettering's Law.

    6. Ian Johnston Silver badge

      Re: The fault's with Microsoft

      Why do we put up with an OS that can be felled by one program with a problem?

      Like the way my Linux Mint session is instantly terminated if I set a font to 96pt in Libre Office or Abiword and zoom in once? Works on five machines.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: The fault's with Microsoft

        Can you restart the graphical interface without rebooting the whole machine? For that matter, does it brick the machine until you boot into safe mode and delete a file?

        Not saying it's ok for any program to be able to crash the GUI, but still better than Windoze where a USB-to-serial adapter can bluescreen the whole machine. (Yes, even in 2024.)

      2. Inkey
        FAIL

        Re: The fault's with Microsoft

        Thats runbish.....

        modern gliphs are size agnolstic there may be a limit but 96 ain't one of them ....

        Just done it and again at 500 points ....

        Check your system, install or raise an issue it's on your side not liber....

        Also page size amount of pages that you can have in a document

        1. Bill Gray
          Megaphone

          Re: The fault's with Microsoft

          "...Thats (sic) runbish (sic)..."

          Important lesson I've frequently wished I could pound into somebody's head (hence icon, would be clue-by-four were such an icon available) : "Works on my machine" is not the same as "there's not a problem".

          It does work on my machine, and am sure it does on yours, too. I'll bet it works properly on >99% of machines; it's hard to imagine a bug of that magnitude slipping through otherwise. (*)

          The failure on five machines is interesting, though. Are there differences between them? What's the common factor explaining why Ian sees this repeatedly and most of the world doesn't see it at all?

          (*) I say that, but... it's happened often that I've fixed bug X that I've heard about from one user, mention it in release notes, and then hear from a few dozen people who ran into exactly that bug, sometimes years back, but had assumed I already knew about it.

      3. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: The fault's with Microsoft

        "Like the way my Linux Mint session is instantly terminated if I set a font to 96pt in Libre Office or Abiword and zoom in once?"

        You keep saying that. I just entered A at 98pt Liberation Serif in LO Writer at zoom 100% and zoomed right up to 400% with no adverse effect. This is Devuan/KDE.

        Maybe it's systemd? [Ducks]

        More seriously, is it a specific font, every font or just some fonts?

    7. Macs1000

      Re: The fault's with Microsoft

      Er, yes, but if Microsoft provided a secure system there would be no need for Crowdstrike in the first instance.

      1. hoola Silver badge

        Re: The fault's with Microsoft

        Ah, the old waffle about Linux and iOS being invulnerable.

        It is just luck, nothing more that those OSs are not affected.

    8. Kevin McMurtrie Silver badge

      Re: The fault's with Microsoft

      Crowdstrike runs on MacOS and Linux too. Malware can get by as nothing more than a userspace app suffering a supply chain attack. Even if the OS and the user are both perfect, corporate IT still has a checkbox to tick that everyone has protection.

      It's IT's fault for not worrying more about the capabilities of data retention and malware detection software. These products can consume $4000 worth of every computer's performance or cause mass spontaneous data loss.

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: The fault's with Microsoft

        "corporate IT still has a checkbox to tick that everyone has protection"

        The box-ticking culture! How about, instead of ticking boxes, we start out recognising, evaluating and mitigating risks. Is there a possibility of a supply chain attack on the O/S or 3rd party S/W? How do we mitigate that? Could we test on a sacrificial machine? Should we use some sort of threat detection S/W? If so, is there a a threat of a s supply chain attack on it etc.?

        1. hoola Silver badge

          Re: The fault's with Microsoft

          AV updates are rarely tested in advance and the entire point os CrowdStrike (and similar competitiors) is they are SaaS.

          1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

            Re: The fault's with Microsoft

            Or in this case DTaaS.

        2. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

          Re: The fault's with Microsoft

          >The box-ticking culture! How about, instead of ticking boxes, we start out recognising, evaluating and mitigating risks.

          That sounds like a lot of work

        3. Roland6 Silver badge

          Re: The fault's with Microsoft

          That looks like a tick list…

    9. hoola Silver badge

      Re: The fault's with Microsoft

      Genuine question I do not know the answer to....

      Will Linux already do what you suggest?

      If not then the dig at Microsoft is irrelevant, that is just the general hatred on The Register of anything Windows with the inevitable solution of Linux and Open Source.

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: The fault's with Microsoft

        You're buried a long way down in the comments. What was the suggestion you're querying?

        FWIW Linux kernel upgrades usually leave one or more old kernels in place. The user will get a few seconds grace to bypass the default boot into the most recent kernel.

        Some distros will just leave the last one in place and delete the one older than that, some will leave all deletion to the user. But the presence of, at minimum, the kernel you were running immediately before the upgrade means that you can go back to what is expected to be a known good kernel.

        Also, the manual boot options include booting any of the available kernels into what would be the equivalent of Windows safe mode in which the system is running single user without starting any more than an absolute minimum of services. It still wouldn't defend against a situation where a bad update affected something outside the kernel which was essential to booting single user because either old or new kernel would pick that up. There is also the possibility o manuallyf issuing parameters to the kernel at boot time. All in all, although no OS is fail-proof here is a great deal more defence in depth than Windows has."".

        AIUI one of the issues with the present situation wasn't just that the update downloaded a corrupt data file but that CrowdStrike's SW did not simply reject it and carry on* but crashed and crashed in such a way that it then blocked the rest of boot. That's a double failure for which the corrupt file was only a trigger. This goes against everything we were taught years ago - that problems that can be caught and handled should be caught and handled.

        And, of course, don't release an update on a Friday.

        " it's evident from the recommended "just delete it" that it the file wasn't essential to normal operation

        ** I should add that my experience is based on SysV usage - systemd based systems may be less or more robust.

        1. Teal Bee

          Re: The fault's with Microsoft

          The previous kernels won't help when there is a driver update, since driver updates are applied to old initramfs images.

          Single user mode is not useful because the system has to boot first, and that means loading the drivers. Even if this weren't the case, users would never be able to reach that point simply because single user mode would be disabled in any environment managed by competent administrators. Otherwise, anyone in proximity of those machines has root access to them, which is irresponsible.

          1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

            Re: The fault's with Microsoft

            I can't remember seeing any but the new initramfs being rebuilt. It would negate the whole point of keeping the old kernels available.

            And single user here (Devuan) wants a root password to bring up a root shell for single user or a Ctrl-D to continue normal boot. What are you running?

      2. doublelayer Silver badge

        Re: The fault's with Microsoft

        Basically, no. If I put in a program which works at kernel level, configure that program to start early in the boot process, and then do something in that process which takes down the kernel, having a Linux kernel instead of an NT kernel won't prevent that from crashing the system nor from making the recovery process annoying. There are some differences meaning that I might not have to run at kernel level for the same purposes, and then maybe my mistake will happen at a higher level and the boot will complete, but there is no guarantee that this will happen. Linux gives the user the ability to run software with very elevated permissions, enough to cause serious faults if that software is badly written.

    10. Wayland

      Re: The fault's with Microsoft

      To be fair, Microsoft achieved this with Windows 7.

    11. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: The fault's with Microsoft

      "Why can't the OS have a fallback to automatically roll back during a boot loop?"

      Remember when it was easy to get Windows to go into safe mode if you got stuck in a boot loop? Now, the only way into safe mode from a PC that can't complete the boot process is to power cycle it three or four time in the hope that the early part of the boot process will realise "something is wrong" and go into repair mode, from which you can try to get into safe mode. I wonder why they made this simple process so difficult?

      I wonder if this whole shitshow will cause MS to pause their long-term "OS as a Service" plan and let us stay with a local OS on a local PC and not be forced into "going cloud" with everything? (Luckily for me, I went BSD some years ago, the only Windows PCs are wife's laptop and my work laptop. Wifes data is all backed up to my BSD server and the work laptop, well, that's not my problem :-)

      1. Terry 6 Silver badge

        Re: The fault's with Microsoft

        I think the naswer to that, dredging up some vague memories from a long time ago, is that Windows was supposed to become stable and self-healing.

        Microsoft, being Microsoft, did things the Microsoft Way. Which, as ever, means taking away the old method, whether they need to or not, irrespective of whether the new one is any good- or even works.

      2. ecofeco Silver badge
        FAIL

        Re: The fault's with Microsoft

        I remember all too well that Win 10 ended F8 Safe Mode. Just as Win 10 first starting bricking PCs with no resource other than to reinstall from scratch because the "recover" disk/USB did not work either.

  9. Version 1.0 Silver badge
    Unhappy

    Problems are profitable these days

    Everywhere you start running into problems these days you need to "upgrade" ... using Windows 10? You need to recycle the computer and buy a new one, but if you are using a much older version of Windows then you are probably just reading posts on El Reg about today's problems.

    If you are thinking about your problems these days then review the corporate profits everywhere that are appearing continually.

  10. Peter Gathercole Silver badge

    "including using paper patient records"

    I was sitting in my GP surgery's waiting room a few weeks back, while I waited for my appointment (it was well past the time of the appointment, I was waiting for quite a long time), and while I was there, workers from Iron Mountain were loading huge trolleys of document archive boxes with names written on the side onto a lorry.

    The conclusion I came to was that they were archiving all of the paper patient records. I do not know whether they had already, or were going to be scanned or what was happening to them since, but I know that they are no longer at the surgery.

    I don't have a reason to call or visit the surgery, so I don't know how their systems are coping. They barely functioned at the best of times, so if they are affected, I think it will be bad!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "including using paper patient records"

      Iron Mountain - At my previous employers they used to use Iron Mountain, that was until IM had a fire and their fire suppression system didn't work very well and we lost all our paper archives. LOL!

      1. Pierre 1970

        Re: "including using paper patient records"

        Iron Mountain fires is a premium service to selected clients... Here in Argentina they managed to get rid of a lot of evidence killing about 10 people that were trying to put down the fire.

        https://www.computerworld.com/article/1517192/iron-mountain-fire-in-buenos-aires-kills-9-destroys-corporate-records.html

        (the Wikipedia entry is only in Spanish).

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: "including using paper patient records"

        Oh, the "secure document destruction" feature? </joke>

  11. shah27

    Time to buy some Crowdstrike shares on the cheap?

    1. John Sager

      I thought about that decades ago when Ferranti were having troubles. Ferranti, good old solid British company right? Bound to pick up. Glad I held off! Crowdstrike will have to eat lots of humble pie.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        shares

        Yeah. Halifax, now Lloyds. Bought more on the way down. Still waiting for them to be worth more than toilet paper!

      2. Alan J. Wylie

        I can remember sitting in a pub with a load of Ferranti employees and contractors one lunchtime in 1993, listening to the news on a radio, waiting for the announcement of bankruptcy. We'd already put all our personal and corporate belongings in our cars.

    2. alexinalnwick

      You think they're going to go back up after this?

    3. hoola Silver badge

      Except they are still not cheap. They are like many tech stocks, ridiculously over valued. Their entire value is based on them being "Cloud based", a disrupter and the ARR from subscriptions. Fundamentally they are nearly worthless.

      1. Terry 6 Silver badge

        Ah but have they got "AI" in there somewhere? If not......

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    IT departments are going to have a shite Monday

    consider this:

    Windows PC borked, in a constant loop of BSOD

    MSFT/Crowdstrike release a fix. Fix cannot be applied remotely to BSOD machines!

    Monday morning y'all form an orderly queue for the IT bods to manually update 100s of thousands of PC at every company.

    Pickpocket alert on Monday!!!

    1. Micky Nozawa

      Re: IT departments are going to have a shite Monday

      "MSFT/Crowdstrike release a fix. Fix cannot be applied remotely to BSOD machines!"

      I just came here to point that out!

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: IT departments are going to have a shite Monday

      Monday? The manure hit the fan this morning

      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: IT departments are going to have a shite Monday

        Bosses might demand IT work all weekend fixing the users machines, but good luck getting the users to turn up over the weekend to get them fixed. Most corporate users have laptops these days. I suppose it depends on the proportion who take their work laptops home, but with most employers still operating a level of WfH, I suspect that's a large proportion.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: IT departments are going to have a shite Monday

      not a fun time for 2nd line :-(

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I don't mind people blaming Windows..

    .. as it's the primary reason companies have to install extras like Crowdstrike in the first place.

    It means those blaming Windows are actually accurately blaming the root cause.

    1. anthonyhegedus Silver badge

      Re: I don't mind people blaming Windows..

      Yep. The root cause is really Windows. It should be resilient enough to cope with one badly written update, even if it is security.

      In 2024 we should not be putting up with an OS that can fail so easily. It's part of the enshittification of everything in IT. And Microsoft's always been at the heart of it.

      1. OhForF' Silver badge

        Re: I don't mind people blaming Windows..

        Can you name an operating system that is guaranteed not to fall over when someone with system level access changes stuff?

        What i'd like to know is how an update fucking up that many machines made it past CrowdStrike's QA and change control processes and what a "channel file" is.

        1. Julian Poyntz

          Re: I don't mind people blaming Windows..

          Bound to be a bad character in a file

          Had that myself recently where we copied some data from one saas app to another and all looked good, but data was not mapping as it should

          Looking, all looked correct - field a matched field b - until I took one of these entries and into notepad++ where I then saw an odd space character. Sorted that.

          We added a bit of error checking for standard characters on the revised system

          Wasn't there a recent crash in the airlines where this happened recently with an upload to something like flight plans ?

          1. TimMaher Silver badge
            Headmaster

            Re: I don't mind people blaming Windows..

            The flight plan thing was an incorrectly formed destination code that bombed the lot.

            El Reg reported on it.

            Badly designed and very frail software.

          2. that one in the corner Silver badge

            Re: I don't mind people blaming Windows..

            > Bound to be a bad character in a file

            We have been told what the dangerous file is called and what timestamps to look for.

            Has anyone thought to keep a copy, rather than just deleting it as they were instructed?

            Does it by any chance read "Step 7 - this file to be overwritten with the output from Step 6"?

            1. Richard 12 Silver badge
              Boffin

              Re: I don't mind people blaming Windows..

              Sysadmins have indeed been keeping the bad files.

              Oddly their hashes vary.

              Security researchers are going to be pulling apart the insides of this dead Falcon for some time. It will be interesting to find out what the haruspectors discover.

        2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

          Re: I don't mind people blaming Windows..

          "Can you name an operating system that is guaranteed not to fall over when someone with system level access changes stuff?"

          No, but can you name one that's guaranteed not to fall over when it changes stuff itself without waiting for someone with system level access to do it?

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: I don't mind people blaming Windows..

            > when it changes stuff itself without waiting for someone with system level access to do it?

            The OS didn't change itself, it was third-party code that updated its own third-party self.

            And the person with system level access who installed the third party code also explicitly gave that code the authority to update itself.

            Whether that is a sane thing to have done is what you should be questioning: should any OS allow a system level user to enable automatic updates?

            If not, how do IT get the road warriors' laptops to keep up to date?

      2. Wayland

        Re: I don't mind people blaming Windows..

        No, Windows cannot be expected to cope with a badly written security patch. For CrowdStrike to do it's job it has to be deep into the sensitive part of Windows.

        The problem is still Windows however because such services as CrowdStrike should not be required if Windows was safe and reliable.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: I don't mind people blaming Windows..

          > The problem is still Windows however because such services as CrowdStrike should not be required if Windows was safe and reliable.

          And if all the users were safe and reliable and never executed anything that go bad, including making sure that they never allowed anything to update itself. Which could be possible, if the PC is locked down hard enough. And users don't badger IT to let one through "because I must have the latest version of Notepad++ all the time (and I have convinced enough upper management as well - or I am upper myself, get on with it, serf).

          Except for all those programs that don't need to be installed to run, don't even need any new executables that IT haven't already vetted: anything written in a scripting language.

          CrowdStrike *claims* to be able to detect anything suspicious, like *all* the accessible files on your PC being overwritten or vanishing (encrypted, for example). If CrowdStrike is not up to its own claims, any other software that could do that trick would have to have the same level of access.

          The name for a computer that is *so* locked down is "calculator".

    2. Nematode

      Re: I don't mind people blaming Windows..

      Completely. I decided a long time ago not to layer more 5hite on top of Windoze, such as "AV". Good practices go a long way, and thankfully M$'s own AV is half decent. Corporates don't really have that choice and have to protect against all users.

    3. Inkey
      Pint

      Re: I don't mind people blaming Windows..

      Wonder if Croudstrikes heuristics found somthing shonky in m$ telemetery code and it chucked a spanner in loop....

      Could be a big lawsuit on the horizion .....

      Share prices tanking, fingers being pointed andl what not...

      Feel for the folks that have to clean this up though...

      Yeah yeah im going.... beer cos it's a nice day and did no need for a coat.

      1. ecofeco Silver badge

        Re: I don't mind people blaming Windows..

        Funny you should say that. That very same thought crossed my mind as well.

        Mostly due to the fact that Mac and Linux were not affected.

  14. Tom66

    My first day at Crowdstrike and they let me deploy my very own ChatGPT-written patch into production! Oh what fun!

    1. Ken Hagan Gold badge
  15. ricardian

    From CrowdStrike's website https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/statement-on-windows-sensor-update

    "CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts. Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted. This is not a security incident or cyberattack. "

    1. Nobby_uk

      "Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted."...this time!

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Crowdstrike's job won't be done

        'til *every* platform's down.

    2. Jellied Eel Silver badge

      This is not a security incident or cyberattack. "

      Sure it is. It has pretty much the same impact as a very severe cyberattack. Security includes boring little details like business continuity and risk. But from the article-

      CrowdStrike Falcon – the vendor's flagship EDR solution trusted by organizations the world over – is to blame.

      I think that may end up becoming past tense. From roaming around the news sites etc, this seems to have had a huge impact and massive costs. I've never used Crowdstrike, don't really like their politics and have heard some rumors that they may have expanded too fast. But I'm curious. As a 'flagship' solution, does it allow customers to test updates before mass deploying them? So how much of this may be down to their customers just setting auto-update on all their endpoints and hoping for the best..

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        The first rule of trust is "trust nobody".

    3. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      "This is not a security incident or cyberattack."

      Just the same bad consequences.

      1. ChoHag Silver badge
      2. doublelayer Silver badge

        Sure, apart from the active attacker having copies of the data and continuing to do even more damage. Not all bad incidents are the same, and this is different from a cyberattack in several ways. That doesn't make it good, but it's akin to saying that a car crash is exactly the same thing as falling down the stairs, because the injuries you received are basically the same.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          >> This is not a security incident or cyberattack

          > active attacker having copies of the data and continuing to do even more damage. Not all bad incidents are the same, and this is different from a cyberattack in several ways.

          The point is moot.

          If it were an attack, it would be CrowdStrike's data that leaked, they would be the ones suffering the continued problems.

          But for the people who have been affected, they are seeing *their* systems failing. Was this due to an attack on CrowdStrike or "merely" their incompetence? Have CrowdStrike's files been copied or are they still safely on their servers?

          Who gives a damn?!

          The Worldwide damage would be the same, all the same systems would have crashed.

          Will people be more trusting of CrowdStrike from now on because it *wasn't* an attack? CrowdStrike's procedures are still broken, whether it was "Procedure A: lock system" or "Procedure B: send working updates".

          Even if you say "well, at least the Secret Sauce that secures the update process hasn't escaped and can't be used by Bad People to infect all those systems next week" - well, even assuming that there *is* a secure process in place, CrowdStrike have a hell of a lot of work to do to convince the users to keep it installed - and making a brand new, more robust updater, with the chance of a controlled rollback, sounds like a good place to start regaining trust.

          1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

            It's not just the updater/release process that needs to be improved. This was just a data file of some sort and the S/W that read it fell over taking the rest of the system and the reboot process with it. A program with that ability should reject a bad data file without falling over.

          2. doublelayer Silver badge

            "If it were an attack, it would be CrowdStrike's data that leaked, they would be the ones suffering the continued problems."

            Supply chain attacks don't work like that. If it had been one, and it wasn't, then customer data would be at risk.

            "Was this due to an attack on CrowdStrike or "merely" their incompetence? Who gives a damn?!"

            Me. If the data I'm responsible for has been copied to an attacker's systems, I need to start dealing with it, and I need to start doing that right now. If it hasn't, then someone else needs to clean up the systems, and I would likely pitch in to help. Depending on whether it's an attack or a malfunction, my next steps are different, the situation for the users and customers is different, the likelihood of substantial damage to my employer is different, so I care. If you work in any area related to this, you should care too.

      3. Roland6 Silver badge

        Depends… think what the fallout would have been given the current political climate if the source of the problem was a Chinese or Russian security company’s product…

  16. elsergiovolador Silver badge

    CrowdStrike

    Good moment for IT crowd to strike.

    Poor wages, no work-life balance, general disrespect...

    1. Wayland

      Re: CrowdStrike

      Switch on the reel to reel tape loop machine that tells you to switch it off and on again.

  17. Eclectic Man Silver badge
    Pint

    BSOD

    The term "Blue Screen Of Death" was previously unknown to the BBC Radio 4 presenters on the 'Today' programme when I turned it on at 8:30 this morning (I'm recovering from an operation, so allowed a lie in). I don't recall exactly, but I'm sure I experienced my first BSOD some time in the last millennium.

    Just goes to show how partitioned we are in our own experiences we can sometimes forget that other people know almost nothing of our experiences, as we know the same of theirs.

    I hope everyone has a great weekend, and the mess is cleared up quickly. As it is Friday, maybe have one of these ----> and relax bit.

    All the best!

    1. Korev Silver badge
      Stop

      Re: BSOD

      I had three last week, it turns out it was a known issue with another vendor's security product and WSL...

    2. richardcox13

      Re: BSOD

      In my day we had General Protection Faults... and it was a good day if you went more than a couple of hours between them...

      1. Alan Brown Silver badge

        Re: BSOD

        Yes, but did they paralyse your operation?

      2. The Oncoming Scorn Silver badge
        Pint

        Re: BSOD

        I've had several BSODS a day for the last two weeks (& stupidly I hadn't made a habit of regular backup images on this machine - No crucial data was lost though), remedial action included two reinstalls's (With one HDD nuking), swapping the GFX card & playing with combinations of RAM in the banks, updating\rolling back drivers.

        It seemed to be stable last night while I watched performance monitor like a hawk, maybe tomorrow I'll throw the other stick of RAM back in if it's stable tonight.

    3. Tom66

      Re: BSOD

      On my new desktop PC I don't think I've ever had a BSOD. But it runs a fairly vanilla configuration with Win 10.

      On the other hand my work laptop BSOD's nearly every week due to some issue with Lenovo's drivers, or the latest changed made to VirtualBox to brick my VM's or the host OS. And unfortunately CE means we have to apply all patches to all software and fix problems later (at least that's what the IT guy tells me. I'm only a peon engineer.)

    4. Wayland

      Re: BSOD

      Radio 4 are one of the causes of dementia. Try to ween yourself off their brain rot.

    5. Richard 12 Silver badge

      Re: BSOD

      Or perhaps it's their job to explain what industry terms mean to the subset of listeners who haven't heard it before.

      That often means asking the "stupid questions", so the listeners don't have to.

      In this case likely the oldest and youngest don't know. If a six year old was sat with their grandfather at breakfast, it's quite likely neither of them knew!

      Be glad of it. You're not an expert in everything.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    CrowdStrike

    Now GutterBall

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: CrowdStrike

      To be fair, if you strike the crowd with the bowling ball...

  19. Will Godfrey Silver badge
    Facepalm

    The best time for a significant update

    Friday of course - just when everyone is at work, but winding down for the weekend.

    1. Dizzy Dwarf
      FAIL

      Re: The best time for a significant update

      And it's not even a bank-holiday weekend!

      1. Will Godfrey Silver badge
        Coat

        Re: The best time for a significant update

        Oh, be fair. It's half-way between bank holidays... and the boss want's this done now!

        coat, cos I'm glad it's not me having to sort this out.

      2. Ken Hagan Gold badge

        Re: The best time for a significant update

        In England, it is the begining of the school holidays. A modest proportion of the IT staff needed to get these machines working again will have next week already booked off.

  20. Dronius

    1. Boot Windows into Safe Mode or the Windows Recovery Environment

    2. Navigate to the C:\Windows\System32\drivers\CrowdStrike directory

    3. Locate the file matching “C-00000291*.sys”, and delete it.

    4. Boot the host normally.

    1. s. pam
      FAIL

      run from the building screaming

      even alt.swedish.chef.bork.bork.bork wouldn't have a clue what to do!

      1. cookieMonster Silver badge
        Pint

        Re: run from the building screaming

        You deserve a pint for that one

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Repeat for however many hosts are affected, which could be in the hundreds or thousands.

      ”Microsoft hath slain its thousands, and Crowdstrike its tens of thousands.”

      All my Windows hosts have OOB management or are in VMs, so at least I don't need to hoof it over to each desktop.

    3. hoola Silver badge

      Assuming you have console access......

      1. Roland6 Silver badge

        And aren’t using disk encryption such as Bitlocker…

  21. bootlesshacker

    Apparently, one of their directors put out a tweet starting that it is "a faulty channel file, so not quite an update".

    Having bricked your machines, let me just take a moment to correct you.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      > a faulty channel file

      Sorry. Bloody autocorrect.

      a faulty charnel file

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Room 101

    BBQ last Friday, someone insisted on a round of room 101, I proposed Lemmings, not the furry ones, but people/companies that don't think for themselves, they don't use the best thing for the job on an as needed basis, they just copy the crowd and use what everyone else uses.

    Today it's Cloudstrike. Other days microsoft, snowflake, solarwinds, Okta, jetBrains, MOVEit so many lemmings jumping off cliffs with all the other professionals?

    Let's not kid ourselves this is a Microsoft problem, if windows was secure we wouldn't need this deluge of security software. An OS should be able to eject an errant driver on boot, whether it enables a network connection is an administrators decision.

  23. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

      harrys,

      Something else.

      It’s an update to a CloudStrike channel file, downloaded from them by their software. Don’t ask me what a channel file is though.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Whatever that channel was holding, it sure leaked out and made a mess..

    2. doublelayer Silver badge

      No, you would not be correct. Read again. It's not Defender. It wasn't pulled through Microsoft. The central fact, and one that's usually in the second paragraph of most stories, is that if CroudStrike was not installed, you don't have a problem.

      I'm not sure if this is another attempt to find a reason why this is actually Microsoft's fault or not, but you have critical facts missing from your model.

      1. Mike_R
        Linux

        >if CroudStrike was not installed, you don't have a problem.

        ... And if M$ Windows were not installed:

        1) There would be no cause for CloudStrike

        2) and the problem would not arise

        1. Casca Silver badge

          You know that crowdstrike exists on macs and linux also?

  24. Alistair
    Windows

    QA team were on vacation?

    I get the automated distribution/update thing, its valuable, but this seems to be massive. What happened to the QA folks?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: QA team were on vacation?

      they picked a damn good week to be sniffing glue?

      1. Elongated Muskrat Silver badge
        Mushroom

        Re: QA team were on vacation?

        Looks like they picked the wrong week to quit amphetamines.

    2. elsergiovolador Silver badge

      Re: QA team were on vacation?

      "Everything is going well, the QA team basically do nothing, so we should let them go and save some money for my yacht"?

      1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

        Re: QA team were on vacation?

        They’re on holiday with Boeing's QA team. They’ve gone on holiday "to a farm"…

        1. Eclectic Man Silver badge
          Joke

          Re: QA team were on vacation?

          "They’ve gone on holiday "to a farm"…"

          This one?

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgphPFNiVZw

    3. Darth.0

      Re: QA team were on vacation?

      You know the old saying: There's no test like production.

    4. ecofeco Silver badge

      Re: QA team were on vacation?

      What is this quality assurance you speak of?

  25. Redact Ted
    Pint

    Those over time hours though...

    Ah, the glorious schadenfreude of a p2 at the office that you would have been on call for if not for the fact your holiday started yesterday.

  26. spold Silver badge

    BCP

    Back to crayons and paper then. Be careful which co-workers you give the crayons to, some I know might eat them...

  27. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    Words of wisdom ..

    Maybe putting ALL global computer-linked services on the cloud to save a few bucks wasn't such a good idearef

  28. prandeamus

    Reputation, Reputation, Reputation

    Having worked for an anti-malware provider in a previous life, though not on the frontline, I can tell you that reputation is gold dust. It's true for any commercial organization of course, but particularly true in the antivirus world. I only hope that when the internal investigations happen, it won't be a witch-hunt in which one or two drones are fired. Mistakes happen but that's why we have quality control, right? And that's why you fund your test environments thoroughly, right? That's why there's someone on the board who will own this, right? We shall see.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Reputation, Reputation, Reputation

      Microsoft's reputation has been shite for decades but almost everyone still used their insecure crapware.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Reputation, Reputation, Reputation

        Yes, OK, but that isn't sold through reputation or you wouldn't be able to give it away.

        In my opinion that is sold through lobbying, bribing, price manipulation, blackmail and flat out lying, and then entangling the customer as soon as he or she has made but the tiniest step towards it. You know, like a cult.

        They may be crap at writing decent software (although after a couple of decades of no improvement you could be forgiven for concluding that that must be deliberate), but they're damn good at flogging rubbish.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Reputation, Reputation, Reputation

          > or you wouldn't be able to give it away

          Microsoft do try damn hard to give it away* yet some of us still stick to the older, still working, one, or don't even unwrap the User Catcher's lollipop in the first place.

          *at least until you realise just how annoying it is to not be able to "personalise" away some of the "features", so now you need a product key

    2. ecofeco Silver badge

      Re: Reputation, Reputation, Reputation

      Sort of.

      You see George Kurtz, who was the CTO of the McAfee debacle, just like this one, is now the.... CEO of Clownstrike.

      So I dunno about reputation. Seems not to matter to fellow CxO travelers.

  29. Spoobistle
    Joke

    Article picture

    "... our service is serverly restricted..."

    I saw what they did there!

  30. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Dodged a bullet today

    We use CrowdStrike, and I'm currently doing business in Johannesburg (and yes, the winter weather is somewhat friendlier than our summer). The group of companies I belong to uses CrowdStrike and has been badly affected. Unfortunately (or fortunately), the corporate Dell is poorly, so I'm using my backup* Surface Pro.

    Anon because I don't want to risk inadvertently identifying the group of companies I work for.

    * I've learned the hard way to never travel to Africa without a degree of redundancy.

  31. T. F. M. Reader

    Blamestorm

    Part of the blame is certainly on Crowdstrike: if their content update breaks Windows with such high probability (if the probability were low only some parts of the world would crash) how come their QA didn't catch this?

    The other part may or may not be on Crowdstrike: do they offer a protocol and recommend a change procedure that includes staging and testing? If not it's on them. If yes, then it looks to me that hardly anyone in the whole world (OK, in the part thereof that uses both MSFT and CRWD, on the basis of the observed data) implements a reasonable change protocol.

    Mind you, EDR/XDR products typically require admin level access to the target machine, without it it's kinda difficult to fight invaders off (the R=response part, at least). And security updates tend to be quite time-sensitive, but that should be handled by the change protocol, at least at the crash/no crash and boot/no boot level.

  32. Tubz Silver badge
    Terminator

    The Nightmare Is Becoming Real

    Why do I hear Sarah Conner in my head ....

    "By the time Crowdshite became self-aware it had spread into millions of computer servers across the planet. Ordinary computers in office buildings, dorm rooms, everywhere. It was software in cyberspace. There was no system core."

    1. gryphon
      Pint

      Re: The Nightmare Is Becoming Real

      Technically that was John's speech not Sarah's.

  33. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Share price?

    Where is this screenshot from? Both my trading app and Google’s analysis does not show this precipitous drop. And this is traded on Nasdaq which hasn’t open yet.

    1. TimMaher Silver badge
      Holmes

      Re: Share price?

      Pre-market price had fallen 20% several hours ago.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Share price?

        Yeah as soon as the market opened I saw the drop. Made a few quid on the rebound though.

  34. Alan J. Wylie

    Critical systems do not fail because a person makes a mistake, but because insufficient controls fail to prevent the mistake. Dr. Johannes Ullrich

    Everybody has a testing environment. Some people are lucky enough enough to have a totally separate environment to run production in.

  35. Adair Silver badge

    Does this make the case...

    for running an immutable OS, just for the sake of very straightforward rollback—whatever kind of IT armageddon strikes?

  36. Sherrie Ludwig

    Looking forward.....

    to the anonymous "Who, me?" post sometime.

  37. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Austin Fire Department dispatch is down

    They are using manual dispatch and getting angrier by the minute. Cloudstrike HQ is in Austin so they may see fire trucks loitering outside their offices.

  38. Dr Paul Taylor

    Single global point of failure

    As a 40-year Unix/.../Linux user, I am enjoying (the rare English sunshine and) the Schadenfreude of the disruption to M$ users.

    It has taken a while for me today to extract what actually happened from all the stuff on the news reports.

    So someone in this company made a blunder and triggered automatic download to millions of Very Important Computers across the Globe.

    The thing that was downloaded was not itself malware, but it caused enormous disruption.

    Of course the malware groups in certain significant countries and the autocrats of those countries are taking notes.

    All they need to do is to infiltrate their Nasty into this company, which will obligingly install it in Very Important Computers across the Globe.

    I am surprised that nobody here has commented on how frightening this is!

    1. Eclectic Man Silver badge
      Joke

      Re: Single global point of failure

      "In today’s modern galaxy, there is of course very little still held to be unspeakable. Many words and expressions which only a matter of decades ago were consider so distastefully explicit that were they merely to be breathed in public, the perpetrator would be shunned, barred from polite society, and in extreme cases, shot through the lungs, are now thought to be very healthy and proper, and their use in everyday speech is seen as evidence of a well-adjusted, relaxed and totally un****ed up personality.

      So, for instance, when in a recent national speech, the financial minister of the royal world estate of Qualvista actually dared to say that due to one thing and another and the fact that no one had made any food for while and the king seemed to have died and most of the population had been on holiday now for over three years, the economy had now arrived at what he called M“one whole jujuflop situation,” everyone was so pleased he felt able to come out and say it that they quite failed to notice that their five thousand year old civilization had just collapsed overnight."

      https://jujuflop.yule.org/jujuflop/

      HHGTTG, a bit of predictive sci-fi from the late, great Douglas Adams, perhaps? (Now, just how many shoe shops are there in the High Street ...)

      1. TimMaher Silver badge
        Coat

        Re: Single global point of failure

        Hang on @Eclectic… don’t forget your towel.

        1. Eclectic Man Silver badge
          Unhappy

          Re: Single global point of failure - downvotes

          Bemused by the downvotes. I knew I have stalkers but Tim's post was perfectly fine.

          Either someone really hates the HHGTTG, or has no sense of humour*

          *(Organic life forms have no sense of fun.)

  39. Zippy´s Sausage Factory

    I'm guessing most Clownstrike contracts are going to include forced arbitration and they'll probably dig their heels in refusing refunds.

    They're going to lose a lot of business over this.

  40. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Safe mode on Dell laptop?

    We have some machines hit with this. The workaround is simple - boot to safe mode and delete a particular file. Trouble is, with Dell machines, we can't get to the Windows boot options, only the Dell ones (normal boot, boot to hard drive which is still normal boot, diagnostics which shows the hardware is fine). Tried F8, F10, F11, F12, BIOS, shutting it down twice while Windows is loading, etc.

    How DO you get to Win10 safe mode from outside of Windows on a Dell?

    1. The Oncoming Scorn Silver badge
      Pint

      Re: Safe mode on Dell laptop?

      Older wiser heads set up legacy (F8) Windows boot menu on their home machines (bcdedit /set {default} bootmenupolicy legacy - Or something similar).

      There's possibly a way for force recovery options by powering off 2 - 3 times while windows is loading.

      https://community.spiceworks.com/t/windows-10-bootmenupolicy-legacy/662183

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Safe mode on Dell laptop?

        Tried the powering off twice while Windows is loading brings up the Dell hardware diagnostics. No option from there that I can find to load Windows safe mode.

  41. Alan Brown Silver badge

    The issue is NOT Crowdstrike

    Let's be blunt: If ytou use an OS which can be put into a bootloop by an application update, you've already lost

    C-level staff should be re-evaluating their vulnerabilities - but won't

  42. Kambo

    Only 20%?

    I have no interest in the stock market but I'm surprised that it's only a 20% drop, as this is an existential mess. How is the fallout going to be mopped up? Hope it turns out OK for all the employees as I imagine they're very concerned for their future.

  43. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "CrowdStrike, not Microsoft" - debatable

    Should an OS really be so fragile that a 3rd party driver can take out the whole OS?

    There is an argument to be made that the kernel should handle this better, e.g. perhaps kill the bad driver / process / alert 'all the things' but crucially stay up - especially in critical server roles.

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: "CrowdStrike, not Microsoft" - debatable

      There's an argument that a vendor program should fail gracefully if it finds a vendor-supplied data file which it can't handle, especially if hte file is so inessential that the workaround is to simply delete the file.

      1. Terry 6 Silver badge

        Re: "CrowdStrike, not Microsoft" - debatable

        This is reminiscent of the HP printer update that I've moaned about on here prevously.Said update having removed the previous software, bar one .dll which for reasons unknown it couldn't remove ( and which couldn't be removed manually) aborted the install with no option to skip the said .dll and continue round it. Leaving the printer unusable on that PC. And it was the exact same version .dll so didn't need to be deleted and replaced anyway.

      2. Pete Sdev Bronze badge

        Re: "CrowdStrike, not Microsoft" - debatable

        You're quite correct.

        However, have you seen the quality of code produced by most keyboard-monkeys?

        Recent example: load and parse a JSON file. No checking if the file exists, if it's readable, or if it contains valid JSON. And in a language that has an easy to use exception system, and functions for the aforementioned checks.

        The problem is "it works" 99.9% of the time. Until it doesn't.

    2. Mr Dogshit
      FAIL

      Re: "CrowdStrike, not Microsoft" - debatable

      You clearly have no idea what kernel mode is.

  44. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I think not

    "...Brits' go-to budget airline Ryanair..." I'd rather walk/swim.

  45. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Kaspersky hits back at US government over the banning of its products

    Kaspersky Strikes Back

  46. tormig

    A TailStrike by the Falcon Sensor

    Seems to be popular in the aviation industry and with the same view on quality as Boeing. And I really did not need that reminder on how much is relying on Windows when I am flying.

  47. Heft

    Internet outage

    I encountered an internet outage last night on my Windows 10 machine. This morning I saw the news about CrowdStrike - I don't use this software, but found that the solution for me was to remove windows patch KB5039893. All is now okay.

  48. shaye

    Plato's allegory of the cave

    Maybe the security software update caused a sudden moment of clarity, in which it realized Windows 11 is a malware.

  49. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Marketing marketing marketing ..

    Anon: “Microsoft's reputation has been shite for decades but almost everyone still used their insecure crapware.

    That only applies inside the tech sector. Outside of that, it has been an immense marketing success.

  50. Luiz Abdala
    Terminator

    Skynet will never take over.

    We just punch a faulty file on the auto-update, the thing reboots itself into oblivion, sorted.

  51. JavaJester
    Trollface

    Falcon + BSOD = Blue Falcon

    Not a good day if you've ben Blue Falconed by this.

    1. DoctorPaul

      Re: Falcon + BSOD = Blue Falcon

      'E's not pinin'! 'E's passed on! This falcon is no more! He has ceased to be! 'E's expired and gone to meet 'is maker! 'E's a stiff! Bereft of life, 'e rests in peace! If you hadn't nailed 'im to the perch 'e'd be pushing up the daisies! 'E's kicked the bucket, 'e's shuffled off 'is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisible!! THIS IS AN EX-FALCON!!

      Readers of a certain age will not need an explanation.

  52. Pete Sdev Bronze badge
    Joke

    Easy money

    1) Get your friends and family to invest in short positions on CrowdShite stock.

    2) Commit a borked definition file

    3) Profit!

  53. Kev99 Silver badge

    Apparently mictosoft isn't the only bunch of PFYs who don't believe in QC or testing.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Big surprise!!

      see https://www.reuters.com/technology/cybersecurity/crowdstrike-update-that-caused-global-outage-likely-skipped-checks-experts-say-2024-07-20/

      CrowdStrike update that caused global outage likely skipped checks, experts say

  54. Mike_R
    Linux

    it DID happen on Linux also, but was easily fixed

    https://www.neowin.net/news/crowdstrike-broke-debian-and-rocky-linux-months-ago-but-no-one-noticed/

  55. xyz Silver badge

    The best No Shit Sherlock headline I could find

    https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/scitech/technology/914032/crowdstrike-update-that-caused-global-outage-likely-skipped-checks-experts-say/story/

  56. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What on Earth is a "channel" file???

    Kudos to the register who, prior to Williams taking over, used to be an IT publication for not only arriving to the party once it was over (there was nothing in here for the first few hours) but also failing to explain what every IT inclined person in the world asked himself when reading the news:

    What in God's unholy name is a "channel" file?

    PS: some nonsensical mumbling about Russia something Ior other included in the article as well, for added pathetic effect.

  57. Snowy Silver badge
    Coat

    Recovered

    Looks like they have recovered nearly half of the loss already.

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like