Massive worldwide IT outage, hitting banks, airlines, supermarkets, broadcasters, etc. [19th July 2024]

[Artaxerxes]

Let's be fair here though this isn't a minor system this is a multi billion dollar firm claiming to be at the forefront of cyber security

 

[Boris Sprinkler]

Worse than thousands of hospital systems being down simultaneously?

I was talking about that specific instance planetgeli was talking of.

 

[two sheds]

The move to working from home probably makes this harder to recover from. Before it was common a "floor walker" could walk their way down an office fixing everyone's machine. Now everyone has to be back at an office that has a physical IT presence to get things fixed

ah and they all run that software because it's security even though they wfh

 

[Artaxerxes]

ah and they all run that software because it's security even though they wfh

Yep

 

[two sheds]

I was talking about that specific instance planetgeli was talking of.

Ah, apologies

 

[Boris Sprinkler]

None needed.

 

[Skinny Ethel]

Its warm isnt it? Clammy i would say. Sweating like a bastard.

 

[moochedit]

Its warm isnt it? Clammy i would say. Sweating like a bastard.

Yes it was hot today but i don't think that was anything to do with the it outage

 

[Uncle Fester]

Anyone who runs a server on Windows 10 has already committed war crimes tbqh.

Its all been quite an eye-opener!
Didn't realise so many companies still used MS for critical systems. Where i work its all Solaris/Linux/Mac (some of the unix boxes with uptimes measured in years) - we ditched Microsoft ages ago, wouldn't dream of using it for anything critical (typing now on my ancient slackware box)...
Have to use a bitlocked Windows 11 laptop occasionally to access a customer system - it nearly ended up flying across the room a few times...

 

[WWWeed]

Its all been quite an eye-opener!
Didn't realise so many companies still used MS for critical systems. Where i work its all Solaris/Linux/Mac (some of the unix boxes with uptimes measured in years) - we ditched Microsoft ages ago, wouldn't dream of using it for anything critical (typing now on my ancient slackware box)...
Have to use a bitlocked Windows 11 laptop occasionally to access a customer system - it nearly ended up flying across the room a few times...

I've been fascinated for years the places windows ends up and the problems it causes as a result (updates, licencing, end of support, etc) and always wondered why that choice of OS was chosen for that particular use case

I'm not so much talking about air gapped machines (although they raise an eyebrow or two) but more network attached embedded machines and mission critical servers. I guess many places just stick with what they know?

I don't deal with any windows based embedded, client or server stuff so thankfully haven't had too many issues today (touch wood etc).

 

[xenon]

We’ve all heard the Windows XP startup theme in Tesco’s.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

from xkcd

 

[teuchter]

To be honest, this sounds relatively minor. Kept worse out of the news.

This news story has occurred in the middle of the summer months. The Danes have a specific phrase for this. “Agurker tid” Cucumber Time. Parliaments out. Kids are out of school. Everyone’s on holiday. Bullshit news comes out.

Exactly.

The kind of people who watch Sky news lap it up though.

 

[bcuster]

Exactly.

The kind of people who watch Sky news lap it up though.

And people who actually have to make the repairs; others are afforded the luxury of sitting back mocking, dismissing and making light of the problems

 

[Boris Sprinkler]

Yes. That’s what they have chosen to do for work.

 

[JimW]

This seems to be true:

 

[ska invita]

Ordered a repeat prescription just before the outage but as of this morning it's not gone through. Luckily I was ordering a little ahead of running out so have a few days to play with

 

[andysays]

Ordered a repeat prescription just before the outage but as of this morning it's not gone through. Luckily I was ordering a little ahead of running out so have a few days to play with

I'm in a similar position.

Will be calling the pharmacy later, but I suspect I will have to go back to the GP on Monday and see if they can issue a paper prescription.

 

[Ted Striker]

 

[Boris Sprinkler]

This seems to be true:
View attachment 434068

It is true. We were big McAfee customers. George Kurtz also cowrote hacking exposed series of books.

 

[Boris Sprinkler]

However.
Like many in the CyberSecurity Industry Crowdstrike is a victim of its own success and chose to follow the dollar rather than what they preached. They even issued a report the same day as their update on the importance of security testing.
But I can bet, that it was aggressive deadlines and quarterly sales targets from whichever investment wankers financing them, and a general culture of quicker, more, and faster that meant that proper checks weren’t followed on software releases.
Quality suffers when greed takes hold. That’s my root cause analysis: greed.

 

[tommers]

However.
Like many in the CyberSecurity Industry Crowdstrike is a victim of its own success and chose to follow the dollar rather than what they preached. They even issued a report the same day as their update on the importance of security testing.
But I can bet, that it was aggressive deadlines and quarterly sales targets from whichever investment wankers financing them, and a general culture of quicker, more, and faster that meant that proper checks weren’t followed on software releases.
Quality suffers when greed takes hold. That’s my root cause analysis: greed.

Funnily enough was just about to link this:

CrowdStruck

Soundtrack: EL-P - Tasmanian Pain Coaster (feat. Omar Rodriguez-Lopez & Cedric Bixler-Zavala) When I first began writing this newsletter, I didn't really have a goal, or a "theme," or anything that could neatly characterize what I was going to write about other than that I was on the computer...

www.wheresyoured.at

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

However.
Like many in the CyberSecurity Industry Crowdstrike is a victim of its own success and chose to follow the dollar rather than what they preached. They even issued a report the same day as their update on the importance of security testing.
But I can bet, that it was aggressive deadlines and quarterly sales targets from whichever investment wankers financing them, and a general culture of quicker, more, and faster that meant that proper checks weren’t followed on software releases.
Quality suffers when greed takes hold. That’s my root cause analysis: greed.

See also; Boeing.

 

[Boris Sprinkler]

I actually think there was an MS azure outage on Thursday pm EST which got confused as being part of this.
Also, to consider, breach notification legislation which has come in recent years, meaning many inexperienced IT Security people are jumping the gun to report breach and this was picked up by a media, bored of Trump almost getting shot and too chicken to report on actual atrocities occurring daily, instead choosing to whip up a media and social frenzy, ignoring the fact that not everyone uses crowdstrike. Failing to explain properly what was occurring.
Or questioning why it was occurring to these apparently robust and certified organizations?

 

[moochedit]

I actually think there was an MS azure outage on Thursday pm EST which got confused as being part of this.

Ah! That's probably where some of the media confusion about microsoft being responsible for the crowdstrike stuff came from.

Yes i had read on my phone in the carpark at work yesterday that office365 was down. Went inside and it was all working normally so it had already been fixed if it had ever been down.

 

[Lazy Llama]

I actually think there was an MS azure outage on Thursday pm EST which got confused as being part of this.

Yes, I’d seen people saying Azure DevOps was broken on Thursday evening.

 

[Boris Sprinkler]

Some utterly shit reporting from the Guardian. Took screengrabs but it basically says MICROSOFT IT OUTAGE LIVE!!!
Which is definitely a candidate for why the Guardian is going down the pan thread.

Then some Interview with the ex head of something. Where he waffles a load of shit about what could be done, rather than pointing out that if companies adhered to supposed standards that already exist (and it’s a massive business ) and say they conform to, why are we not bringing them to task on this. Why are journalists not looking into the frameworks that hsbc says they are compliant to and then pointing out that actually you are not complying to testing software before introducing to a financial payments system environment. Anyway, it’s all money for consultants now.

 

[moochedit]

Some utterly shit reporting from the Guardian. Took screengrabs but it basically says MICROSOFT IT OUTAGE LIVE!!!

Probably their journalists are apple fan bois

 

[Boris Sprinkler]

Probably their journalists are apple fan bois

If their begging pop up’s are to go by, they much prefer quantity over quality.

 

[ska invita]

Probably their journalists are apple fan bois

Im surprised Ive not seen more