Sunday, July 28, 2024

CrowdStrike out of the news, but still a problem

 

This is out of the news because of all the politics. It's a shocking case of arrogance. The story sounds like LAUSD incompetent principals who are kicked from one school to another. I put in some bold to direct your attention.

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CrowdStrike Didn't Just Affect Windows But Linux Too! (Kind Of)

CrowdStrike wreaking havoc everywhere!

SOURAV RUDRA

July 23, 2024 . 3:06 PM  3 min read

At the end of last week, the IT industry saw a catastrophic event take place thanks to a faulty patch pushed into Windows by CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm based out of Austin, Texas.

Even though its timing might've been a boon for those looking to get off work early.

Many critical infrastructures such as Airports and Medical facilities had to bear the brunt of it, raising many important questions over dependence on such centralized pieces of tech.

Luckily, the issue has since been addressed, but this didn't stop many, including us, from creating some funny memes on CrowdStrike's plight.

Sadly, Linux was also affected by Crowdstrike weeks before this catastrophic event occurred, which largely went unknown, until now, that is. 🫤

CrowdStrike's Incompetence: A Heavy Price To Pay For Second-Class Treatment

a screenshot of a forum post on rocky linux forums outlining an issue with crowdstrike falcon

Back in May, a Rocky Linux user posted an issue on the forum which reported that upgrading to Rocky Linux 9.4 on servers equipped with CrowdStrike's Falcon platform would result in a system freeze due to a kernel panic.

Other users also chimed in, facing similar issues, and after going around looking for potential fixes, they finally found one in Red Hat's Customer Portal, more on that in a bit.

On Hacker News, another user suffering from CrowdStrike's incompetence shared that a fleet of production machines running Debian were taken offline when CrowdStrike pushed an incompatible patch for Debian stable.

When they initially contacted support, CrowdStrike took a day to respond, then asked for more proof, beyond what was already provided, they then took some days to acknowledge it.

And, after making them wait for a couple of weeks, they sent a root cause analysis, which mentioned that they didn't support this specific scenario of Debian stable running version N-1, which the user believed was a supported configuration.

But, wait, there's more!

a screenshot of red hat customer portal article outlining an issue with cloudflare falcon

In a similar situation, many Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) users also faced issues due to Falcon, for which Red Hat had to issue multiple warnings.

The first case (subscribers-only) was the one I mentioned earlier for Rocky Linux, in which kernel panic was observed after booting on Linux kernel 5.14.0-410 and later systems due to the falcon-sensor process.

The second case was a system crash issue on RHEL 6 and 7, where Red Hat offered a workaround, by suggesting users disable Falcon to mitigate the issue, with the other option being to contact CrowdStrike support for assistance.

By now, we know how prompt CrowdStrike's customer service is. ☠️

Unsurprisingly, thanks to all the chaos, the U.S. House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee has officially sent a letter to George Kurtz, CEO of CrowdStrike, asking him to testify on the massive outage.

I would have liked to think that this was due to Linux-based OSes being affected, but, as we all know, Windows is the favorite child among all the operating systems for a bulk of the population.


Fun (
or ominous!?) fact, George Kurtz, CEO of SrowdStrike was the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of McAfee back in 2010, when the infamous DAT 5958
antivirus update managed to cripple millions of Windows-equipped computers around the world.

Friday, July 19, 2024

Beginning the Empty Summer

 As I wrote earlier, I went to the SCI-Arc event Wed. (also visited the Hauser&Wirth Gallery and surrounding shops. Unfortunately, the arts and crafts stores have died and beer halls have replaced them. Many empty storefronts. The long apartment complex, Santa Fe one, looks half alive. Very sad. After the departure of Eric Moss even SCI-Arc has morphed from an exciting inspired fountain into a stagnant pool. 


For some strange reason the dnj gallery on Ocean Park Blvd, SM emailed me an invitation to attend a performance of Arnold Schoenberg's 1st and 3rd String Quartets. I remember never visiting the place. I almost didn't go, but it's the beginning of the empty summer, so why not. Fabulous performance by the Webern String Quartet. The owner of the Gallery is the grandson of the composer. I include a link to his film, Fioretta,  made with his son, chronicling their European journal of family discovery. Link to the film trailer:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15846788/

Nothing today.

Saturday I'm off to the Hammer Mus and a UCLA Fowler Museum Opening. You know me...there will be food, drinks and music.
About the Exhibition
Sangre de Nopal/Blood of the Nopal offers an expanded understanding of Indigenous cultivation and production of cochineal, an insect-derived red dye developed by the Zapotec peoples around 500 BC. Interdisciplinary fiber artists Tanya Aguiñiga and Porfirio Gutiérrez present both new commissions and existing work, displayed alongside Oaxacan textiles from the Fowler collection. This multivocal exhibition centers ancestral knowledge and technical experimentation, and brings a special attention to issues of immigration and labor justice.