A Lesson from the Global IT Outage Caused by the CrowdStrike Falcon Update: The Importance of Continuous Source Code Audits in SDLC!

On July 20, 2024, a major global IT blackout highlighted a critical vulnerability in the cybersecurity landscape. A defect in a recent update of CrowdStrike Falcon, a leading endpoint security solution, caused a cascading failure across multiple industries worldwide. This incident underscores the vital importance of continuous source code audits as an integral part of the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), especially for mission-critical deployments.

The Incident: A Global Disruption CrowdStrike Falcon's update caused widespread disruptions, affecting banks, airlines, healthcare providers, and TV broadcasters. The software update led to Windows systems crashing globally, resulting in operational standstills and significant economic impacts. Despite CrowdStrike's swift response to isolate and address the defect, the incident exposed a crucial need for more robust pre-release testing and code audits.

Why Continuous Source Code Audits Matter Continuous source code auditing involves systematically reviewing code to identify potential vulnerabilities and ensure compliance with security standards. This process is essential for several reasons:

1. Early Detection of Vulnerabilities: Regular code audits help detect security flaws early, reducing the risk of them being exploited in production environments.
2. Compliance and Standards Adherence: Audits ensure that code complies with industry standards and regulatory requirements, which is crucial for maintaining trust and avoiding legal penalties.
3. Improved Code Quality: Auditing helps improve the overall quality of the codebase by identifying and rectifying issues related to performance, security, and maintainability.
4. Enhanced Security Posture: Knowing the weak points in your code adds an extra layer of protection, making it harder for malicious actors to exploit vulnerabilities.

Learning from Open Source Projects While CrowdStrike Falcon is proprietary software, examining the company's open-source projects can provide insights into their software quality metrics and auditing practices. CrowdStrike's open-source repositories showcase their commitment to transparency and community collaboration, offering valuable tools for security researchers and developers. By analyzing these projects, one can infer the stringent security and quality standards applied to their proprietary solutions.

CodeWeTrust's Contribution At CodeWeTrust, we have set up a C2M server exclusively for the source code audit of CrowdStrike's open-source software. You can access the server using our guest account or extract sample reports by setting up a FREE account on CodeWeTrust’s portal.

We have used quality benchmarks and a set of thresholds collected over two years by analyzing the top 20 GitHub frameworks (those with the highest usage). This allows us to compare the quality of CrowdStrike's open-source software with today’s software quality standards. Our audits include the discovery of programming practice violations, Static Application Security Testing (SAST), Software Composition Analysis (SCA), license compliance analysis, and commit history analysis. While it is beyond the scope of this article to assess the quality of this particular codebase in detail, our sole goal is to emphasize the importance of source code audits and promote them as a necessary tool for every company deploying mission-critical software.

U:[email protected] P: c2m!GUEST

Server: https://crowdstrike-oss-audit.dd.codewetrust-api.com/

Implementing Continuous Audits in SDLC To integrate continuous source code audits effectively, organizations should:

• Automate Code Reviews: Use automated tools to perform static and dynamic analysis on the codebase regularly.
• Conduct Regular Manual Audits: Complement automated tools with manual code reviews by experienced security professionals.
• Adopt Secure Coding Practices: Train developers on secure coding standards and practices to minimize the introduction of vulnerabilities.
• Integrate Audits into CI/CD Pipelines: Ensure that code audits are part of the continuous integration and deployment processes to catch issues early in the development cycle.

Conclusion The CrowdStrike Falcon outage serves as a stark reminder of the importance of continuous source code audits. In today's interconnected world, ensuring the security and reliability of software through rigorous auditing practices is non-negotiable. By embedding these practices into the SDLC, organizations can safeguard against similar disruptions and maintain the integrity of their mission-critical deployments.

In summary, continuous source code audits are not just a best practice but a necessity in the modern cybersecurity landscape. They provide a proactive approach to identifying and mitigating vulnerabilities, ensuring that software remains resilient and reliable even in the face of unforeseen challenges.

References

1. How a software update from cyber firm CrowdStrike caused one of the world’s biggest IT blackouts

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/07/19/what-is-crowdstrike-crwd-and-how-did-it-cause-global-it-outages.html

1. https://codewetrust.blog/
2. An AI-based Approach to Cost Reduction in SDLC https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/ai-based-approach-cost-reduction-sdlc-costas-voliotis/?trackingId=ZQ%2BxhlysS46ktx18jTXC1g%3D%3D
3. Cracking the Code: DePIN Ecosystem Source Analysis VS Financial Success

https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/cracking-code-depin-ecosystem-source-analysis-vs-success-voliotis-996mf/?trackingId=ZQ%2BxhlysS46ktx18jTXC1g%3D%3D