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Time Is Money

Aug 8, 2024 • 5 min read

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Berkshire Hathaway Holdings
CrowdStrike IT Outage Cause

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Berkshire Hathaway Holdings:

Warren Buffett, the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, has significantly increased his holdings in United States Treasury Bills, surpassing the Federal Reserve's holdings. As of June 30, 2024, Buffett's company held $235 billion in short-term investments in these government securities, up from $130 billion in the previous quarter. This substantial holding represents 4% of all Treasury Bills issued to the public, compared to the $195 billion held by the Federal Reserve.
Treasury Bills are short-term debt securities issued by the U.S. government and are considered highly secure due to being backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government. They are purchased at a discount and mature at face value, with the difference representing the interest earned. Although they do not offer high returns like riskier investments such as stocks, Treasury Bills have become more attractive recently due to the Federal Reserve maintaining benchmark interest rates between 5.25% and 5.5%.
As of August 6, the return rates on three-month Treasury Bills were 5.21%, six-month Treasury Bills were 4.91%, and 12-month Treasury notes were 4.43%. Buffett's substantial increase in Treasury Bill holdings highlights his cautious investment strategy amid economic uncertainty. It reflects his preference for stable and secure assets over higher-risk opportunities, emphasizing the importance of liquidity and safety in his investment decisions. This strategy ensures that Berkshire Hathaway maintains a robust financial position while earning a modest return in a volatile market environment.

CrowdStrike IT Outage Cause:

CrowdStrike's recent root cause analysis revealed that a problematic update to its Falcon EDR sensor caused a significant global IT outage on Windows systems. The deeply integrated Falcon sensor, which plays a crucial role in monitoring and defending against malware, failed after the update introduced several issues. These issues included a mismatch between validated inputs and those processed by the system, an out-of-bounds read error, and the lack of a specific test to catch these problems.
The problematic update sent to the sensors caused the system to expect more data than was available, leading to an out-of-bounds read beyond the data array's bounds, resulting in a crash. This crash disrupted numerous IT systems that relied on the Falcon sensor for security, highlighting the potential risks when deeply integrated security components fail. The severity of the incident demonstrated how critical it is to ensure rigorous testing and validation for system updates, especially in security software.
In response, CrowdStrike has implemented several measures to prevent future occurrences. CrowdStrike has engaged two independent third-party software security vendors to thoroughly review the Falcon sensor code for security and quality assurance. Additionally, an independent review of their end-to-end quality process from development to deployment is underway, with a focus on the impacted code. Despite the challenges posed by this incident, the partnership between CrowdStrike and Microsoft remains crucial for enhancing the security of Windows environments. These steps aim to strengthen their cybersecurity measures and restore confidence in their systems, underscoring the importance of robust and reliable infrastructure to prevent such widespread disruptions in the future.

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