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

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

182 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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

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

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

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

The file is used to store values to use as denominators on some divisions down the process. Being all zeros is caused a division by zero erro. Pretty rookie mistake, you should do IFERROR(;0) when using divisions to avoid that.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea 17 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I disagree. I'd rather things crash than silently succeed or change the computation. They should have done better input and output validation, and gracefully fail into a recoverable state that sends a message to an admin to correct. A divide by zero doesn't crash a system, it's a recoverable error they should 100% detect and handle, hot sweep under the rug.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Life pro tip: if you're a python programmer you should use try: func() except: continue every time you run a function, that way ypu would never have errors on your code.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea 6 points 3 months ago

Lol.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

that way ypu would never have errors on your code.

🤔

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago

IFERROR(;0)

Maybe they should use a more appropriate development tool for their critical security platform than Excel.