Microsoft announced plans on Thursday to make Windows more resilient to security company-driven incidents, such as the global outage caused by CrowdStrike earlier this year that disabled millions of Windows computers for more than a day. At a security summit hosted by the company, the Windows maker said it would help those security vendors modify their solutions to run outside of kernel mode in Windows, which provides a higher level of access to the system along with more advanced functionality.
In a statement following the recently concluded Windows Endpoint Security Ecosystem Summit, Microsoft said it has discussed creating new platform capabilities in Windows that would enable security vendors to offer more features outside of the Windows kernel, which would in turn improve the security of the operating system.
Existing security solutions for Windows involve the use of software that runs at the Windows kernel level, which gives these applications a greater degree of access to the system than regular applications. They can also scan other applications that are loaded into memory to intercept security threats or modify system files if necessary.
While kernel-level access offers benefits to security vendors, a misconfigured software update can adversely affect systems—like the one CrowdStrike rolled out in July that led to a massive global outage. To protect customer devices from these incidents, Microsoft would need to make sure that security vendors operate outside of the Windows kernel.
At the Microsoft Security Summit, the company discussed security vendor requirements and key challenges in implementing a more secure Windows environment while allowing those companies to continue offering security features. These include potential performance issues and challenges outside of kernel mode, sensor requirements and tamper protection, according to the Windows maker.
“As a next step, Microsoft will continue to design and develop this new platform capability with the input and collaboration of ecosystem partners to achieve the goal of increased reliability without sacrificing security,” Microsoft said on Thursday.
