What makes CrowdStrike so ubiquous that their error created such catastrophe?

It's one of the better EDR (Endpoint Detection and Response) tools on the market. For enterprises, they are able to suck down tons of system activities and provide alerting for security teams.

For detection, when I say "tons of data", I mean it. Any background logs related to network activity, filesystem activity, command line info, service info, service actions and much more for every endpoint in an organization.

The response component can block execution of apps or completely isolate an endpoint if it is compromised, only allowing access by security staff.

Because Crowdstrike can (kind of) handle that much data and still be able to run rule checks while also providing SOC services makes them a common choice for enterprises.

The problem is that EDR tools need to run at the kernel level (or at a very high permission level) to be able to read that type data and also block it. This increases the risk of catastrophic problems if specific drivers are blocked by another kind of anti-malware service.

When you look at how EDR tools function, there is little difference between them and well written malware.

Crowdstrike became a choice recently for many companies that got fucked over by Broadcom buying VMWare. VMWare owned another tool, Carbon Black, which became subject to the fuckery of Broadcom so more companies scrambled to Crowdstrike recently.

I hope that was enough of a summary.

212

More than enough! Thanks :)

17
I assume "endpoint" here means a computer that is on the network?

11
- Endpoint is any PC/laptop/sign/POS/etc. It's a catchall term for anything that isn't a server. it basically refers to any machine that might be logged into and used by a non-IT user.
  
  31
- A computer that is used by a user, aka "not a server"
  
  10
it was not, go on

10
Thanks!

8
Permanently Deleted

7
What's SOC services?

4
- Security Operations Center
  
  7
- Security and compliance. It's a certification that you're following best practices, IT and otherwise.
  
  -2
Don't forget the Superbowl ad and a ton of money put into marketing. It's not surprising that it attaracted the attention of executives looking for something to tick an audit checkbox.

4

It kinda is top of its class in endpoint detection and response software. A lot of cyber security insurance policies will demand you have some kind of EDR to be covered and seeing as Crowdstrike is one of the biggest names they get a lot of buyin from institutions and governments.

55

Or in other words, everyone else is complete shit.

-8
- No, but yes.
  
  Crowdstrike was one of the first companies doing EDR, and have a first mover advantage they have held onto. Lots of other companies offer good solutions now, but crowdstrike is still considered the gold standard, and they have worked hard to become the "default" for their market segment.
  
  26
- What CrowdStrike is actually selling, is someone who actually looks at the system logs and who pushes a button when something pops up. Roughly.
  
  There are better solutions on the market. Unfortunately CrowdStrike has the more aggressive sales team.
  
  For those wondering, I’m referring to *nix based solutions like SElinux, appArmor, iptables, nftables, cgroups, … But you need to monitor your logs if you want to take appropriate action.
  
  12
- No, it's not a binary thing. There are other EDR products but they are the largest.
  
  12
- Crowdstrike marketed to c-suites better than the others.
  
  6

A lot of companies install it for compliance checkboxing.

45

Apart from fjordbasa's caveat RE "ubiquity" above, this is probably the most succinct answer 😐

5

It’s not so much that it’s ubiquitous so much as the customers that DID use it were very large and their going down was very noticeable.

39

Basically, drivers can launch code all the way up to ring 0, the highest level a code can access to. This mean it runs its code with the same priviledges as the kernel itself. The anti-malware solution CrowdStrike makes use of this access to determine what could be going wrong, and deploy solutions accordingly.

If a code running in that level crashes, Windows will rightfully assume there's something really fucked up is going on, and give out a BSOD.

26

there's something really fucked up going on

I would actually prefer this kind of error over the usual and equally uninformative "Oopsie! Something went wrong. We're sorry :("

14
- Permanently Deleted
  
  4

When an operating system allows a single misbehaving program to take down the whole computer and leave it unbootable. I thought we left that behind with Windows 95.

12

Drivers usually run in kernel space, where a crash can bring the whole system down. This is not exclusive to Windows

18
- Yes but only in Windows land do you see jillions of (proprietary) drivers made by 3rd parties. Many of which self-update.
  
  10
- This isn't a driver. It's anti-malware. Nobody on Linux puts such software in kernel space (as far as I'm aware). Root service? maybe, but that's still a user-space process.
  
  -3
Permanently Deleted

2
- Apple is introducing a lot of user space frameworks to replace much of the kext level functionality though.
  
  3
That has been a thing forever. I doubt it will ever go away.

2
- Permanently Deleted
  
  7

https://youtu.be/4yDm6xNeYas?si=0VzBxIuPEHC4SMaa

This fireship video is a good, short explanation.

11

BTW, if Windows had been an immutable OS the case would not have been so dire.

-4

If my grandmother had wheels, she would have been a bike.

16
- It's a different recipe!
  
  2
Permanently Deleted

2

Probably it runs with privileges of the OS level, what applications should not do. The second problem is monoculture. To run the same software of a single company an all machines is easy, but...

-13

It literally has to run at that level to do it's job.

25
- 'He's out of line but he's right'. I mean, is a bit ironic to give this level of permission to a program that is too malware-like to protect yourself from exactly that. We're talking about hospitals, airports and airlines, government agencies... many critical systems, so much information's security rely on a (foreign for most of the world) private company.
  
  5
Companies wouldn't mind having an OS level code run on their PCs if its meant to help secure their computers. A malware infecting their computers could result in way more damages after all.

8
- I'm not so sure what is worse. I wish we wouldn't reimplement statist practices in computers, as it often not goes well in our physical world, and invent more resources into OS/network security, compartmentalization and privilege separation. But yeah, the reality is it's easier to put a god-like "trusted" agent in a system. Well, the police need have guns, read all private chats, place security cameras with face recognition everywhere... to do their jobs. Otherwise terrorist attacks or whatever could result in way more damages after all. The same story every time.
  
  2
Is it a kernel module or what? Why did it BSOD the whole system?

1
- Effectively. Kernel level driver intercepting system calls for logging, analysis, and potential blocking.
  
  1