A faulty software update issued by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike affected computers running Microsoft Windows, grounding flights and disrupting systems worldwide.
It’s what happens when you put too many eggs in one basket. You see a similar house of cards when you look at package managers in the software dev space. Single point of failure.
The reality though is that Windows computers not running the CrowdStrike agent were not affected. This one falls on CS, but there is a much larger problem at play. Also, auto-updates are a plague, especially on a kernel level. That’s just insanity.
Yeah the issue is that so many companies were at the intersection of two monopolies – either one failing has catastrophic effects, and there’s no backup plan.
I mean any technology solution can suffer the same fate, but you would hope that it wouldnt be an issue at the same time if they’re separate tech stacks.
Specifically to make something which is not mission-critical reliant on any underlying software…but that’s almost impossible. Not reliant on the base operating system would be a nice start.
I have friends still dealing with all kinds of airline troubles (basically stuck in cities for a week past their return date) and I can’t believe anyone would have so many mission-critical systems using Windows. Their infrastructure must be a mess.
It’s what happens when you put too many eggs in one basket. You see a similar house of cards when you look at package managers in the software dev space. Single point of failure.
The reality though is that Windows computers not running the CrowdStrike agent were not affected. This one falls on CS, but there is a much larger problem at play. Also, auto-updates are a plague, especially on a kernel level. That’s just insanity.
Yeah the issue is that so many companies were at the intersection of two monopolies – either one failing has catastrophic effects, and there’s no backup plan.
A backup plan probably involves using some other company/service that can suffer the same fate 😭
I mean any technology solution can suffer the same fate, but you would hope that it wouldnt be an issue at the same time if they’re separate tech stacks.
The real solution is to not make anything that’s mission-critical reliant on Windows.
Specifically to make something which is not mission-critical reliant on any underlying software…but that’s almost impossible. Not reliant on the base operating system would be a nice start.
I have friends still dealing with all kinds of airline troubles (basically stuck in cities for a week past their return date) and I can’t believe anyone would have so many mission-critical systems using Windows. Their infrastructure must be a mess.