Technology

Windows 7 and 8.1 Are Facing a Problem With New Bug

Windows 7 and 8.1 Were Facing a Problem With New Bug

A new version of an old bug in Windows 7 and 8.1 of the distant times of Windows 95 and 98 have returned and not precisely in the form of chips. This is a bug related to the way the system handles some file names.

It is a problem in NTFS that allows a file with a specific name to be able to slow the system to the extreme that it needs to reboot in order to continue using the computer, or simply hangs Windows completely and ends up showing a blue screen of death.

Thanks to this problem a malicious website can simply insert one of those filenames inside pictures, and when they try to upload to your computer, the system crashes.

How Bug Affected To Windows 7 And 8.1

Windows 7 and 8.1 Were Facing a Problem With New Bug

The special file name used by the bug is “$ MFT”. This is a special name given to metadata files that NTFS uses in Windows. This file exists in the root directory of each NTFS volume and is handled in a special way, hidden and inaccessible to most software.

Now, if $ MFT is used instead as a directory name, and the user tries to open something like “C: \ $ MFT \ 123”, the NTFS file system locks it and never frees it. This basically creates a domino effect, since all attempts to access the file system are blocked, and in the meantime, all other programs will begin to hang until the computer cannot be used.

The bug affects Windows Vista ( which is no longer supported ), Windows 7 and 8.1. It seems that only Windows 10 is saved thanks to it uses another type of special file name for NTFS. The bug was discovered earlier this week and has been reported to Microsoft, but at the moment there is no patch.

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