Security News > 2024 > July > How a cheap barcode scanner helped fix CrowdStrike'd Windows PCs in a flash
Not long after Windows PCs and servers at the Australian limb of audit and tax advisory Grant Thornton started BSODing last Friday, senior systems engineer Rob Woltz remembered a small but important fact: When PCs boot, they consider barcode scanners no differently to keyboards.
That knowledge nugget became important as the firm tried to figure out how to respond to the mess CrowdStrike created, which at Grant Thornton Australia threw hundreds of PCs and no fewer than 100 servers into the doomloop that CrowdStrike's shoddy testing software made possible.
Woltz went to an office supplies store and acquired an off-the-shelf barcode scanner for AU$55.
At the point when rebooting PCs asked for a BitLocker key, pointing the scanner at the barcode on the server's screen made the machines treat the input exactly as if the key was being typed.
On Monday, remote staff were told to come to the office with their PCs and visit IT to connect to a barcode scanner.
Woltz told The Register he and the team are chuffed that they were able to help, and also that some of them feature as hand models wielding barcode scanners in Watson's LinkedIn post... .
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