IT Department's Plan

the good news is that it does make windows more secure. you cant hack something that has crashed.

Remember guys, it took about a decade for Solar Winds to discover somebody had root access to everybody that used their software, another decade for somebody outside Solar Winds to discover it and tell everybody, and half a decade with nobody claiming to have solved the issue up to now.
So when you believe that your computer with an EDS is safe just because you can't use it, think again.
- EDS?
The most secure computer is the one not running any software. That's why I recommend Crowdstrike.

The fact that random companies like Crowdstrike have kernel drivers in millions of computers they they ship remotely is a security risk in and of itself. We're lucky crowdstrike just shipped a bug that crashes computers, other companies could have shipped a lot worse.

other companies could have shipped a lot worse.
other ~~companies~~ governments could have shipped a lot worse.
FTFY
- other ~~companies~~ governments ~~could have~~ may have already shipped a lot worse.
  FTFY (high five!)

I can laugh either for or at you, if you want.
I'll pour one out for the frontliners.
I laugh and it does/did(over now) affect me. Bwahaha. Im getting work done and nobody can interrupt with email.
- All I've noticed is that a lot of internet related things in my work are much faster today.
  The schadenfreude could only be sweeter if my company used CrowdStrike on all the Windows systems. Then I really would have had a very peaceful focused day.

I really don't want to be the guy responsible for this fuck up

For a company this big it would also have to have gotten past a code review and QA team, right? ... right? ...
- Of course, of course. This is how these things are always done.
- I like how they kept on pushing the update for hours
- And who pushes out production updates on a Friday!
- Code review, QA team, hours of being baked on an internal test network, incremental exponential roll out to the world, starting slow so that any problems can be immediately rolled back. If they didn't have those basics, they have no business being a tech company, let alone a security company who puts out windows drivers.
Yeah, something this big is absolutely not one engineer's fault. Even if that engineer maliciously pushed an update, it's not their fault --- it was a complete failure of the organization, and one person having the ability to wreck havoc like this is the failure.
And I actually have some amount of hope that, in this case, it is being recognized as such.
- I agree but they will still blame it all on that one guy.
This is an industry wide issue. This is just the first symptom.
- Yeah and that means they won't nail some poor schmuck to the wall over this?
- What we need is to stop the blind trust
He'll just get fired, apply somewhere else, and they'll only know the dates he worked at CrowdStrike.
If anybody cared, they would have switched away from M$ by now.

Also: don't trust your employees to boot into safe mode.
Trust a 3rd party to freely install system level files at any time.

I knew how to fix the computers at work today in the morning, but we couldn't get through to the help desk to get the bit locker codes for each computer until near the end of the day.

- Companies and Governments need to rethink how they approach security entirely. This is a preview of what is to come, its only going to get worse and more damaging from here, and none of the vendors care.
  It is easy one for goverments. Ban security through obscurity. As well proprietary security software.
  Moonbutt's moonbuck))) Have I seen you somewhere?

The problem is the blind trust of these "vendors"

Decentralize control

Centralize control in house.
- Compared to the status quo, that's much more decentralized.

Just remember to take off on 2038-01-19
“Air gapped”… in my day we called that the sneaker net.

I'm pretty sure Windows is plenty secure. It isn't private or usercentric but of on a security perspective it isn't bad.

Linux has plenty of security problems just like any OS

Defending Windows in a linux memes community.
That's a bold move cotton, let's see how that works out for 'em
- Well an organization shouldn't be giving end users admin. That's a recipe for disaster. From an updates perspective you can tightly control which update is applied and when.
  Microsoft makes some crappy decisions but they do know who there big customers are.

More like ClownStrike.

Cloudstriked
They striked all right

They stop breaches if nothing's turned on. Roll safe (mode)

Sometimes you have to learn the hard way...

Ha guess why I'm on lemmy right now.

Shit Happens

Unfortunately, heads are going to roll, and it’ll probably be the little guy who gets the blame.

I'm actually curious to know, how is Linux inherently more secure than windows?

Few things, in rough order:
Smaller = less attack surface. You can strip a Linux OS down to only what is needed.
Open source, so it's can be peered review. There are Unix distros like OpenBSD, that share lot of user space component options, where auditing is a big thing. The whole sunlight and oxygen stops things festering as much. As abosed to things locked in a box in another box down in a cellar.
Open source transparency forces corporates to be better. We can see what they are and aren't doing.
Diversity. The is no "Linux", it's a ecosystem of Linux distros all built and configured differently, using different components. Think of Linux as just a type of base board in a sea of Unix Lego bits. There are plenty of big deployments on BSD bases that share a lot with some Linux deployments.
Unix security is simplier than Windows security, so easer to not mess up.
Its not and everyone who says it does is full of shit. The reason linux doesnt need av is that av is secretly overrated
In general it is. Opensource software has less bugs that proprietary. And even those bugs can be mitigated with hardening.
- That's...a gross oversimplification. Super popular open source projects tend to have few bugs from the sheer number of contributors available to fix them, but active proprietary software has dedicated teams working fulltime every week to deal woth issues. Proprietary stuff is often way wider in scope than open source, so more surface for bugs to creep in. Scope and team size have a lot more to do with bug density than open vs closed source.
It's not, in fact out of the box Linux is SIGNIFICANTLY more insecure than windows.
The thing is, hackers and hack tool makers target the largest market segment to gain the most conversions.
Apple users used to gush about how virus proof they were until they hit decent market share, and then they got plenty of malware.
Same thing with Linux but the real difference is you need a few decades of linux experience to fix anything in a timely manner.
- Linux is SIGNIFICANTLY more insecure than windows.
  Absolutely not true. I assume you don't have a source for this? Besides your butt...?
  UPDATE:: They did not have a source.
- Question, how is Linux more insecure out of the box?
- target the largest market segment to gain the most conversions.
  Windows market share is bigger in desktop only. In fact, is kinda sad that still there are serious institutions using Windows for non-desktop stuff. I hope this incident changes it.
  the real difference is you need a few decades of linux experience to fix anything in a timely manner.
  [ citation needed ] Probably you are meaning desktop again. Although troubleshooting Windows is not easy task neither, there are way more desktop users familiar with it.
  The real thing is
  There is no single "linux" OS. There are lots of different OSes based on Linux kernel. And they are for servers, desktop, embedded systems, smartphones, etc.
  More important. Security is a process, not a product from a vendor. The root cause of this incident is that some institutions are seeing that you just buy "security", install it, and call it a day. No important stuff should auto-update. And no institution should auto-update lots of important stuff at the same time.
  So, Linux is not really more secure. But is built in a culture where security is taken more seriously.
Sort of an aside, but I am seeing Microsoft more as a hostile entity that I need to protect myself from.
It isn't.
However security software for Linux usually doesn't operate in kernel level usually. And it doesn't brick your bios.
That being said because of how Linux works it is much more possible to safe a bricked Linux machine than a Windows machine.
In addition to what others have said, there's the move towards containerized applications on Linux via flatpaks, immutable distributions, and snapshots/rollbacks. There are also distributions like Debian with a delayed package release schedule for added stability and security. Its my understanding that you could have an exceptionally secure, effectively trustless, Linux system beyond what is possible on Mac or Windows.
If you follow the philosophy that it follows, that is, giving the least possible permission to any application, to make it work, it easily becomes much more secure than Windows.
On the other hand, if you log into your GUI desktop as root, Bill Gates save you.
Because you can own your system and inspect and alter all of it in case it's needed.

MS’s built-in security platform is top tier also. Some companies like alternative products.

There is nothing Microsoft I would consider "top tier" when it comes to security.
Defender does a great job for many AV tasks. Crowdstrike does more, and protection isn't tied to windows updates.
This isn't a situation where companies just chose not to use the free item, the free item has other costs (management overhead) and is missing some features.
The best answer, of course, is to not use windows for anything that needs to be secure.
Edit: For those who think I'm wrong, cool. I'm not but you are welcome to disagree.
There is a difference between the free defender and paid for defender. If you're a home user, check out defenderui.com to get (many, not all) features that are normally limited to intune/gpo.
A full and proper deployed defender stack is very good, but in terms of management.... The approach to different os's is practically cobbled together, the webui is horrific, and it lacks some basic functionality. A problem to manage a system like this is a problem to deploy a system like this.
If you're on the free Defender level, you are not getting anywhere near the same features as falcon, there is absolutely zero question about that.
- The best answer, of course, is to not use windows for anything that needs to be secure.
  Edit: For those who think I'm wrong, cool. I'm not but you are welcome to disagree.
  Linux admins here: Quiet nods and knowing looks.
  Windows admins here: quiet awkward glances at each other to see if anyone wants to defend MS today.
  Mac admins here: quiet awkward glances to see if anyone feels like this was any better than a coin toss chance of happening just to Macs, today, instead.
- There is nothing Microsoft I would consider "top tier" when it comes to security.
  Counterpoint: Xbox consoles. They just stick everything inside of VMs a la QubesOS

I am so lucky I didn't update my PC

Do you use CrowdStrike on your PC? If not, you have nothing to worry about
- I don't so I'm good?

Yeah, time to switch from CrowdStrike to SolarWinds...