Please remove the “74935 viewing “ from the beginning of the submission, since that is apparently a viewer count at the time of the HN posting.

I always thought crowdstrike type software was a scary piece of software.

It would make the perfect target for an attack. High privleged and used everywhere.

All these endpoint protection solutions do complex things in the lowest levels of the OS and inside the kernel. Their MO is to inspect, intercept, block and/or modify calls made by other software on the system.

We used to have a name for software like that in the 1990's. We called them rootkits.

But it checks a box somewhere so it has to be good. How can anyone run an IT infrastructure without buying a dozen "security" solutions in this day and age? Just designing your network with security in mind instead? Are you nuts?

There’s a non-trivial element behind all of this class of software, which is that humans are gonna human. Whether that’s a constant cat and mouse game in which your X number of employees are fodder who will inevitably click the wrong thing at the wrong time, or a zero-day laden worm that might be stoppable with enough eyeballs and some manner of heuristics that can automatically roll out some countermeasure.

Here on HN we generally understand technology well enough that most of us probably don’t need all these safeguards. James in accounting absolutely does, though.

There are a lot of “James in accounting”s out there, and a lot of them run or manage the companies that make the line of business software that everyone else relies on.

I’ve been studying the news coverage outside the tech sphere and the way people talk about this outage betrays exactly why software like this exists in the first place.

A wonderful target for a supply chain attack.

That's not the title? Likely related to Windows Bluescreen and Boot Loops (update: caused by a Crowdstrike update) (184 points, 1 hour ago) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41002195

I think, as it is a live BBC page, the title is changing over time? It is now "Planes grounded as mass worldwide IT outage spreads, with airlines, media and banks hit"

There's no 74935 on the page? And other submissions match the title https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41002710

Well it says "147,759 viewing" now. Not sure what you are expecting?

Oops - now it's 152,915 viewing

I’m really confused about the line of questioning here. Do you think it’s more likely that the submitter has purposely put a random number at the start, or that they’re telling the truth and there’s something that you’re not seeing?

It's the view counter above the headline. C&P error

Another large parallel discussion thread:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41002677

It is scary if all the core infrastructure is based on windows.

It not neccesarily is. If the gate agent uses a windows laptop, the core infrastructure (servers) might not be windows, but if the laptop doesnt work its still "down" even if the servers are fine.

Hopefully less will be after this!

lol

This lack of sovereignty is alarming in a lot of domains.

Hmm, let's deploy this on friday, what could possibly go wrong?

I know it's a tired old meme, but it's still true. :)

The "x viewing" has just mistakenly been copied in with the original title.

Outage resulted from a "security update".