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.
Is there a way to remotely boot into network activated recovery mode? Genuine question, I never looked into it.
For physical servers there are out of band management systems like Dell DRAC that allows you to manage the server even when the OS is broken or non existent.
For clients there are systems like Intel vPRO and AMD AMT. I have not used either of them but they apparently work similarly to the systems used on servers.
Ah neat, I’ll look those up. Thanks a lot!
A expensive kvm card, or Pikvm for the home server.
At least for virtual servers, There has to be a cheaper software equivalent, as my cheap VPS allows this (via vnc) with no issues.
Virtual servers (as opposed to hardware workstations or servers) will usually have their “KVM” (Keyboard Video Mouse) built in to the hypervisor control plane. ESXi, Proxmox (KVM - Kernel Virtual Machine), XCP-ng/Citrix XenServer (Xen), Nutanix (KVM-like), and many others all provide access to this. It all comes down to what’s configured on the hypervisor OS.
VMs are easy because the video and control feeds are software constructs so you can just hook into what’s already there. Hardware (especially workstations) are harder because you don’t always have a chip on the motherboard that can tap that data. Servers usually have a dedicated co-computer soldered onto the motherboard to do this, but if there’s nothing nailed down to do it, your remote access is limited to what you can plug in. PiKVM is one such plug-in option.
Thank you for the explanation, I really appreciate it. Bystanders will probably too :)