So What Is Going On With The Cloudy Thing?

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ChatGPT says:

Windows 365 is a cloud-based service from Microsoft that provides virtual Windows desktops. It allows users to stream a Windows experience from the Microsoft cloud to any device. This service is aimed at businesses and provides a way to access Windows 10 or Windows 11 desktops with all the necessary apps, data, and settings from any internet-connected device. Key features include:

Scalability: Easily scalable to meet the needs of businesses of all sizes.
Security: Built on Microsoft's robust security framework.
Accessibility: Access your virtual desktop from anywhere on various devices, including PCs, Macs, tablets, and smartphones.
Management: Integrated with Microsoft Endpoint Manager for seamless management and deployment.

Windows 365 offers different configurations and pricing plans based on computing power and storage needs.

From a BBC news article https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp4wnrxqlewo -
"Microsoft is advising clients to try a classic method to get things working - turning it off and on again - in some cases up to 15 times."

This ^
It represents the idiocy of allowing a flaky, vulnerability-ridden excuse for an OS to become a monoculture, a single point of failure.
And then there's the issue of rolling out an update to that monoculture which was clearly not properly tested.

1. This is one example of a device that allows an system administrator to reboot/power cycle a device that is “locked up”, such as a Windows BSOD. Like I said not every data center has these.

https://www.aten.com/us/en/products/pow ... du/pe4104/

2. Here is an example of KVM (Keyboard Video and Mouse) over IP

https://www.kvm-switches-online.com/kvm ... guide.html

Which allows one to access a remote server as if you had a keyboard, mouse and monitor connected directly and were standing there in front of the server. I have worked places that use this and I think they are becoming more common, but still not everyone has these gadgets.

3. Virtual machine management software like VMware can also do a virtual KVM (Keyboard Video and Mouse) for the virtual machines.

https://www.vmware.com/pdf/desktop/vmware-kvm.pdf

To further confuse things, when talking about virtual machines there is a second definition for the same TLA (Three Letter Acronym). KVM (Kernel Virtual Machine) is a VMware competitor, or FOSS (Free Open Source Software) alternative to VMware.

In the end, companies with enough sophistication to have remote reboot and remote KVM (Keyboard Video and Mouse) may not have contracted with CrowdStrike, or may have had a policy to not put in the patch/upgrade without their own testing first.

So the fact that it seems to be hitting only some sectors and not others is related to “big enough to hire CrowdStrike but not big enough to DIY” thing I mentioned before.

For the VERY CURIOUS

Here is the actual fix from CrowdStrike

https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/statem ... ows-hosts/

Here is an example of doing an automated fix on GCP (Google Cloud Platform) which allows remote reboot.

https://www.crowdstrike.com/wp-content/ ... in-GCP.pdf

CrowdStrike is taking the blame. They do not blame Microsoft

https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/falcon ... l-details/