I'm confused by the widespread description of the #CrowdStrike thing as, say, a problem with #Windows PCs as such.
Surely it's only a problem with Windows PCs running CrowdStrike Falcon or whatever?
Is that software SO widespread that most of the PCs in the world are crashing?
I'm pretty sure my Windows laptop is fine; aren't most people's?
Is it just that the news is incapable of nuance? Or is the stuff pre-installed on 80% of Windows boxen and I'm just lucky? Or what?
Seriously! Although I gather this Falcon thing is just as intrusive and kernel-resident in its *ix version.
@ceoln #CrowdStrike is major cybersecurity company with global reach and pricey products. The've messed up their product called Falcon that gets rapid updates and runs at kernel-level (as high as it goes, like drivers, full access to everything). It made computers it was installed on crash and bootloop. Problem affects only Windows with Falcon installed. That's why your laptop isn't affected.
@ceoln Just the ones with that software on it… Yes. But also every computer that logs in/connects to those computers can do stuff.
So it’s much more widespread than the 10 million crashed computers, since if, say, a few of them run authorization or login servers, millions more users can’t log in and thus are affected too.
@ceoln thing is that crowd strike have Mac and Linux versions two, and they were okay.
So they say "it only affects Windows updates" and the press are so dumb they repeat "Microsoft's fault"
Yes, windows is unaffected in general, only corps who outsource their security to crowd strike are affected really.
Apparently there were quite a few of those!
@ceoln Yes. The corps are often regulated by best-practice rules set by government agencies.
And you can tick the box in the regulation forms by doing the hard work of agreeing to install updates within 24 hours or whatever, or by just outsourcing it to government-recommended corporations.
All you gotta do is give the corporation connected to government agencies root on your computers, allow them to scan your machines and update them with any software they want, and you can tick the box!
The whole industry is sus and infested with spooks.
@ceoln my impression is that it only afflicts people who use Windows in IT infrastructure, where the operating system should be banned.