This is an unpopular opinion, and I get why – people crave a scapegoat. CrowdStrike undeniably pushed a faulty update demanding a low-level fix (booting into recovery). However, this incident lays bare the fragility of corporate IT, particularly for companies entrusted with vast amounts of sensitive personal information.
Robust disaster recovery plans, including automated processes to remotely reboot and remediate thousands of machines, aren’t revolutionary. They’re basic hygiene, especially when considering the potential consequences of a breach. Yet, this incident highlights a systemic failure across many organizations. While CrowdStrike erred, the real culprit is a culture of shortcuts and misplaced priorities within corporate IT.
Too often, companies throw millions at vendor contracts, lured by flashy promises and neglecting the due diligence necessary to ensure those solutions truly fit their needs. This is exacerbated by a corporate culture where CEOs, vice presidents, and managers are often more easily swayed by vendor kickbacks, gifts, and lavish trips than by investing in innovative ideas with measurable outcomes.
This misguided approach not only results in bloated IT budgets but also leaves companies vulnerable to precisely the kind of disruptions caused by the CrowdStrike incident. When decision-makers prioritize personal gain over the long-term health and security of their IT infrastructure, it’s ultimately the customers and their data that suffer.
You’d have to have something even lower level like a OOB KVM on every workstation which would be stupid expensive for the ROI, or something at the UEFI layer that could potentially introduce more security holes.
…you don’t have OOBM on every single networked device and terminal? Have you never heard of the buddy system?
You should probably start writing up an RFP. I’d suggest you also consider doubling up on the company issued phones per user.
If they already have an ATT phone, get them a Verizon one as well, or vice versa.
At my company we’re already way past that. We’re actually starting to import workers to provide human OOBM.
You don’t answer my call? I’ll just text the migrant worker we chained to your leg to flick your ear until you pick up.
Maybe that sounds extreme, but guess who’s company wasn’t impacted by the Crowdstrike outage.
UEFI isn’t going away. Sorry to break the news to you.
I didn’t say it was, nor did I say UEFI was the problem. My point was additional applications or extensions at the UEFI layer increase the attack footprint of a system. Just like vPro, you’re giving hackers a method that can compromise a system below the OS. And add that in to laptops and computers that get plugged in random places before VPNs and other security software is loaded and you have a nice recipe for hidden spyware and such.