this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2024
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Southwest Airlines, the fourth largest airline in the US, is seemingly unaffected by the problematic CrowdStrike update that caused millions of computers to BSoD (Blue Screen of Death) because it used Windows 3.1. The CrowdStrike issue disrupted operations globally after a faulty update caused newer computers to freeze and stop working, with many prominent institutions, including airports and almost all US airlines, including United, Delta, and American Airlines, needing to stop flights.

Windows 3.1, launched in 1992, is likely not getting any updates. So, when CrowdStrike pushed the faulty update to all its customers, Southwest wasn’t affected (because it didn’t receive an update to begin with).

The airlines affected by the CrowdStrike update had to ground their fleets because many of their background systems refused to operate. These systems could include pilot and fleet scheduling, maintenance records, ticketing, etc. Thankfully, the lousy update did not affect aircraft systems, ensuring that everything airborne remained safe and were always in control of their pilots.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 5 months ago

That makes fuckall sense.

Windows 3.1 not being updated by Microsoft has nothing to do with Crowdstrike rolling out an update to their Falcon Sensor software including a file with 42kB of zeroes.

On Windows 3.1 you probably can't run Falcon Sensor, so in that way it could be related. But it seems way more likely that Southwest Airlines simply didn't use Falcon Sensor on their normal Windows 10 or whatever clients.

There are probably competitors to Crowdstrike, at least some companies would be customers to one of them.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

Ahhhh, the Technology Trap. The modern world has become a mere handful of bad zeros away from having this house of cards crash down and kill almost everyone.

Technology is great and makes our modern society comfy and great. But it also can be the Sword of Damocles. When will that slender thread break and kill us all?

[–] [email protected] 16 points 5 months ago (1 children)

If they still use Windows 3.1 and it works, then I do have to wonder about the rest of their security setup.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Windows 3.1 can't use modern versions of tls which means it's effectively impossible to network it securely.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago

You just know there's an SMB share somewhere with no password, where files filled with unencrypted customer details get dumped for processing by an ancient AS400 server.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 months ago

I thought everyone already switched to 3.11

[–] [email protected] 16 points 5 months ago (2 children)

So...Battlestar Galactica scenario?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago
[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago

I love such things in Star Wars too.

And not sure whether there's been a plot play with the Katana fleet (all ships were slaved to the flagship, all crews including that of the flagship caught a virus causing them to go mad and die, and while they were still alive, the fleet jumped in unknown direction ; it was found later and ships reused by sides of the civil war) where its obsolete electronics and software were actually an advantage security-wise.

Though in that universe it seems that interfacing and integrating wildly different systems is more or less a normal thing, since there are lots of planets, lots of races and some things still in operation are few centuries old.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago

I thought I was eating an onion... Nope.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I’m inclined to believe this post, claiming this article is BS https://mastodon.social/@jplebreton/112825798853315264

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

Yes, the update bricked the systems, meaning the software that powers their business was unaccessible, reinstalling any version of windows would not restore the software built on top of the os. Thus why it became a huge ordeal rather than a simple update push from Microsoft, a bricked system can’t receive a fix remotely.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Hang on, if you're using CrowdStrike but not getting the updates, then why are you using it at all?

[–] [email protected] 29 points 5 months ago

Because none of these journalists have a basic understanding of what actually happened lol

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