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Comment by Lx1oG-AWb6h_ZG0 | Hacker News Reader

Wouldn't this be an attack vector? Use some low-hanging bug to bring down an entire security module, allowing you to escalate?

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It's currently a DOS by the crashing component, so it's already broken the Availability part of Confidentiality/Integrity/Availability that defines the goals of security.

But a loss of availability is so much more palatable than the others, plus the others often result in manually restricting availability anyway when discovered.

I think the wider societal impact from the loss of availability today - particularly for those in healthcare settings - might suggest this isn't always the case

Availability of a system that can’t ensure data integrity seems equally bad though.

Tell that to the millions of people whose flights were canceled, the surgeries not performed, etc etc.

Or anyone who owns CrowdStrike shares.

What is the importance of data integrity? If important pre-op data/instructions are missing or gets saved on the wrong patient record which causes botched surgeries, if there are misprescribed post-op medications, if there is huge confusion and delays in critical follow-up surgeries because of a 100% available system that messed up patient data across hospitals nationwide, if there are malpractice lawsuits putting entire hospitals out of business etc etc, then is that fallout clearly worth having an available system in the first place?

How does crowdstrike protect against instructions being saved on the wrong patient’s record?

Huh? We're talking about hypotheticals here. You're saying availability is clearly more important than data integrity. I'm saying that if a buggy kernel loadable module allowed systems to keep on running as if nothing was wrong, but actually caused data integrity problems while the system is running, that's just as bad or worse.

They’d surely have used some kind of Unix if uptime mattered.

before you get all smug recognize that linux has the exact same architecture, just because it wasn't impacted - this time.

Too late, I was born smug.

If Linux and Windows have similar architectural flaws, Microsoft must have some massive execution problems. They are getting embarrassed in QA by a bunch of hobbyists, lol.

I'm sure the people who missed their flights because of this disagree.

Or families of those who die.

If you're planning around bugs in security modules, you're better off disabling them - malware routinely use bugs in drivers to escalate, so the bug you're allowing can make the escalation vector even more powerful as now it gets to Ring 0 early loading.

> Wouldn't this be an attack vector?

Isn't DoSing your own OS an attack vector? and a worse one when it's used in critical infrastructure where lives are at stake.

There is a reasonable balance to strike, sometimes it's not a good idea to go to extreme measures to prevent unlikely intrusion vectors due to the non-monetary costs.

See: The optimal amount of fraud is non-zero.

In the absence of a Crowdstrike bug, if an attacker is able to cause Crowdstrike to trigger a bluescreen, I assume the attacker would be able to trigger a bluescreen in some other way. So I don't think this is a good argument for removing the check.

That assumes it's more likely than crowdstrike mass bricking all of these computers... this is the balance, it's not about possibility, it's about probability.

I think we're in agreement. I now realize my previous comment replied to the wrong comment. I meant to reply to Lx1oG-AWb6h_ZG0. Sorry.

Requires state level social engineering.

Might by why north Koreans are trying to get work from home jobs.

https://www.businessinsider.com/woman-helped-north-korea-fin...

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