IT administrators are struggling to deal with the ongoing fallout from the faulty CrowdStrike update. One spoke to The Register to share what it is like at the coalface.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the administrator, who is responsible for a fleet of devices, many of which are used within warehouses, told us: “It is very disturbing that a single AV update can take down more machines than a global denial of service attack. I know some businesses that have hundreds of machines down. For me, it was about 25 percent of our PCs and 10 percent of servers.”
He isn’t alone. An administrator on Reddit said 40 percent of servers were affected, along with 70 percent of client computers stuck in a bootloop, or approximately 1,000 endpoints.
Sadly, for our administrator, things are less than ideal.
Another Redditor posted: "They sent us a patch but it required we boot into safe mode.
"We can’t boot into safe mode because our BitLocker keys are stored inside of a service that we can’t login to because our AD is down.
Pity the administrators who dutifully kept a list of those keys on a secure server share, only to find that the server is also now showing a screen of baleful blue.
Lol, can you imagine? It empathetically hurts me even thinking of this situation. Enter that brave hero who kept the fileshare decryption key in a local keepass :D
That’s why the 3-2-1 rule exists:
- 3 copies of everything on
- 2 different forms of media with
- 1 copy off site
For something like keys, that means:
- secure server share
- server share backup at a different site
- physical copy (either USB, printed in a safe, etc)
Any IT pro should be aware of this “rule.” Oh, and periodically test restoring from a backup to make sure the backup actually works.
We have a cron job that once a quarter files a ticket with whoever is on-call that week to test all our documented emergency access procedures to ensure they’re all working, accessible, up-to-date etc.
Seems like an argument for a heterogeneous environment, perhaps a solid and secure Linux server to host important keys like that.
Their point is not that linux can’t fail, it’s that a mix of windows and linux is better than just one. That’s what “heterogeneous environment” means.
You should think of your network environment like an ecosystem; monocultures are vulnerable to systemic failure. Diverse ecosystems are more resilient.
Sure but the chances of your Windows and Linux machines shitting the bed at the same time is less than if everything is running Windows. It’s exactly the same reason you keep a physical copy (which after all can break/burn down etc.) - more baskets to spread your eggs across.
We can’t boot into safe mode because our BitLocker keys are stored inside of a service that we can’t login to because our AD is down.
Someone never tested their DR plans, if they even have them. Generally locking your keys inside the car is not a good idea.
I remember a few career changes ago, I was a back room kid working for an MSP.
One day I get an email to build a computer for the company, cheap as hell. Basically just enough to boot Windows 7.
I was to build it, put it online long enough to get all of the drivers installed, and then set it up in the server room, as physically far away from any network ports as possible. IIRC I was even given an IO shield that physically covered the network port for after it updated.
It was our air-gapped encryption key backup.
I feel like that shitty company was somehow prepared for this better than some of these companies today. In fact, I wonder if that computer is still running somewhere and just saved someone’s ass.
The good news is! This is a shake out test and they’re going to update those playbooks
I wish you were right. I really wish you were. I don’t think you are. I’m not trying to be a contrarian but I don’t think for a large number of organizations that this is the case.
For what it’s worth I truly hope that I’m 100% incorrect and everybody learns from this bullshit but that may not be the case.
We also backup our bitlocker keys with our RMM solution for this very reason.
I hope that system doesn’t have any dependencies on the systems it’s protecting (auth, mfa).
I get storing bitlocker keys in AD, but as a net admin and not a server admin…what do you do with the DCs keys? USB storage in a sealed envelope in a safe (or at worst, locked file cabinet drawer in the IT managers office)?
Or do people forego running bitlocker on servers since encrypting data-at-rest can be compensated by physical security in the data center?
Or DCs run on SEDs?
When I set it up at one company, the recovery keys were printed out and kept separately.
You need at least two copies in two different places - places that will not burn down/explode/flood/collapse/be locked down by the police at the same time.
An enterprise is going to be commissioning new computers or reformatting existing ones at least once per day. This means the bitlocker key list would need printouts at least every day in two places.
Given the above, it’s easy to see that this process will fail from time to time, in ways like accicentally leaking a document with all these keys.
They also don’t seem to have a process for testing updates like these…?
This seems like showing some really shitty testing practices at a ton of IT departments.
Apparently from what I was reading these are forced updates from Crowdstrike, you don’t have a choice.
I’ve heard differently. But if it’s true, that should have been a non-starter for the product for exactly reasons like this. This is basic stuff.
Unfortunately, the pace of attack development doesn’t really give much time for testing.
More time that the zero time than companies appear to have invested here.
Lmao this is incredible
Another Redditor posted: "They sent us a patch but it required we boot into safe mode.
"We can’t boot into safe mode because our BitLocker keys are stored inside of a service that we can’t login to because our AD is down.
“Most of our comms are down, most execs’ laptops are in infinite bsod boot loops, engineers can’t get access to credentials to servers.”
N.B.: Reddit link is from the source
I hope a lot of c-suites get fired for this. But I’m pretty sure they won’t be.
Our administrator is understandably a little bitter about the whole experience as it has unfolded, saying, "We were forced to switch from the perfectly good ESET solution which we have used for years by our central IT team last year.
Sounds like a lot of architects and admins are going to get thrown under the bus for this one.
“Yes, we ordered you to cut costs in impossible ways, but we never told you specifically to centralize everything with a third party, that was just the only financially acceptable solution that we would approve. This is still your fault, so we’re firing the entire IT department and replacing them with an AI managed by a company in Sri Lanka.”
Lemmy appears to be weathering the storm quite well…
…probably runs on linux
It runs on hundreds of servers. If any of them ran windows they might be out but unless you got an account on them you’d be fine with the rest. That’s the whole point of federation.
This is why every machine I manage has a second boot option to download a small recovery image off the Internet and phone home with a shell. And a copy of it on a cheap USB stick.
Worst case I can boot the Windows install in a VM with the real disk, do the maintenance remotely. I can reinstall the whole thing remotely. Just need the user to mash F12 during boot and select the recovery environment, possibly input WiFi credentials if not wired.
I feel like this should be standard if you have a lot of remote machines in the field.
This is why every machine I manage has a second boot option to download a small recovery image off the Internet and phone home with a shell. And a copy of it on a cheap USB stick.
You’re fucking killing it. Stay awesome.
Also gist this up pls. Thanks.
I wish it was more shareable, but it’s also not as magic as it sounds.
Fundamentally it’s just a Linux install with some heavy customizations so that it does one thing only: boot Linux, and just enough prompts to get it online so that the VPN works, and download the root image into RAM that it boots into so I can SSH into the box, and then a bunch of Linux tools for me to use so I can reimage from there, or run a QEMU with the physical disk passed through so I can VNC into an install even if it BSOD.
It’s a Linux UKI (combined kernel+initramfs into a simple EFI file the firmware can boot directly without a bootloader), but you can just as easily get away with a hidden Debian install or whatever. Can even be a second Windows install if that’s your thing. The reason I went this particular route is I don’t have to update it since it downloads it on the fly, much like the Mac recovery. And it runs entirely in RAM afrerwards so I can safely do whatever is needed with the disk.
I dream of working somewhere where this kind of effort is appreciated enough to motivate me to put in the effort of actually doing it.
Just need the user to mash F12 during boot and select the recovery environment, possibly input WiFi credentials if not wired
In theory that sounds great, now just do it 1000+ times while your phone is ringing off the hook and you’re working with some of the most tech illiterate people in your org.
Sounds like a nightmare for security, and a dream for attackers.
More companies need to do this, solid job security.
