Microsoft is announcing plans to make changes to Windows that will help CrowdStrike and other security vendors operate outside of the Windows kernel. The announcement stems from a Microsoft-hosted security summit earlier this week at the company’s Redmond, Washington, headquarters, where it discussed changes to Windows in the wake of the disastrous CrowdStrike incident in July.
Windows kernel access has been a hot topic ever since the CrowdStrike catastrophe took down 8.5 million Windows PCs and servers. CrowdStrike’s software runs at the kernel level of Windows — the core part of an operating system that has unrestricted access to system memory and hardware. That’s what allowed a faulty update to generate a Blue Screen of Death as soon...