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Windows 3.1 saves the day during CrowdStrike outage — Southwest Airlines scrapes by with archaic OS (www.tomshardware.com)

submitted 6 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

98 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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.

(page 2) 50 comments

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago

I thought everyone already switched to 3.11

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago

This software is shit Bob! What should we do Bob?

Well Bob, we should find something compatible with shit!

Bob, I think I got it! I got this other shit software!

Genius Bob! Just Genius! 😎

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 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] 3 points 6 months ago

🤯

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 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] -5 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (4 children)

Everything we know about this is that it was a disaster waiting to happen. Why the heck aren't the airlines using Linux instead of Windows for critical stuff? How about something like...Chrome OS? Then you don't need CrowdStrike because your OS is already secure because of the built in VMs and because it is Linux. Pay google for support and no updates unless there is something critical.

edit: Lots of Microsoft lovers here lol. And missing the point which is that using the most well known consumer OS for critical stuff like keeping flights going is begging for trouble.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

The disaster likely happened because Crowdstrike didn't do any phased rollouts or testing, which would have picked up a glitch like these before it could brick countless millions of systems. Blaming Microsoft for what is most likely gross negligence from a major cybersecurity firm is downright disingenuous.

Also, recommending an overglorified web browser baked into an OS which can only run web and Android applications to run critical infrastructure is downright laughable, ESPECIALLY when Google are known for their downright nonexistent customer support.

People use Windows because it's the most well-known and used OS on the market, and because Microsoft is a multi-billion dollar tech giant with a dedicated customer support and tech team to fix issues posthaste.

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