Registering Dismay: Microsoft Azure Blues

October 20, 2021

The Beyond Search team loves Microsoft. Totally.

Some are not thrilled with automated customer service. Talk to smart software. Skip the human thing. Microsoft’s customer service has been setting a high standard for decades. . Despite the company getting bigger and more powerful, Microsoft sparked a story in The Register called “WTF? Microsoft Makes Fixing Deadly OOMIGOD Flaws On Azure Your Job.”

Azure is Microsoft’s cloud platform and users using Linux VMs are susceptible to four “OMIGOD” in the Open Management Infrastructure (OMI). Linux Azure users are forced to fend for themselves with the OMIGOD bugs, because Microsoft will not assist them. What is even worse for the Linux users is that they do no want to run OMIs on their virtual machines. OMIs are automatically deployed when the VM is installed when some Azure features are enabled. Without a patch, hackers can access root code and upload malware.

The write up points out that Microsoft did some repairs:

“The Windows giant publicly fixed the holes in its OMI source in mid-August, released it last week, and only now is advising customers. Researchers quickly found unpatched instances of OMI. Security vendor Censys, for example, wrote that it discovered ’56 known exposed services worldwide that are likely vulnerable to this issue, including a major health organization and two major entertainment companies.…In other words, there may not be that many vulnerable machines facing the public internet, or not many that are easily found.”

Linux VM users on Azure are unknowingly exposed and a determined hacker could access the systems.

Is it possible Windows 11 is a red herring. OMIGOD, no.

Whitney Grace, October 20, 2021

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