The path in the Windows root folder can crash the device and also help hackers carry out attacks.
A new flaw discovered by Jonas Lickgard, Windows security researcher, could have irreversible consequences on Windows 10 PCs.
Likkegaard, who has reported this issue through his Twitter account since October 2020, warned that entering a specific file path from System Explorer or through a link immediately crashes the computer and may cause this. It’s called a blue screen of death (BSoD), which many computers don’t recover from.
The specialist explained to the portal Sleeping computer That if the aforementioned path is opened by the user, the system will not be able to properly check whether there are errors when communicating, which leads to BSoD blocking regardless of whether the user has administrator privileges or not.
Likewise, hackers can take advantage of this flaw to implement Denial of Service (DoS) attacks that allow you to shut down a computer or network and delay detection of the attack, the gateway warns.
A company spokesperson told Bleeping Computer: “Microsoft is committed to the customer to investigate the discovered security issues and we will release updates to the affected devices as soon as possible.”
The good news for users is that not everyone tends to go too far in their computer “software” to reach the “kernel,” which is one of the words that make up the fateful path. The kernel is the Windows kernel that controls the operation of the operating system and links it to “devices”. So the best way out of this dangerous situation is simply not to get into it.