The CrowdStrike Windows outage that hit the world this week stems back to an EU-Microsoft deal from 2009 that meant Microsoft had to give antivirus vendors the same Windows API access it had.
It might not be written literally like that but for Microsoft not letting third party developers write kernel drivers for windows would be considered abusing their position in the market very fast. The problem isn’t they allow kernel drivers, this is just ms throwing all the balls they can, is that they certified this very driver, as tested and stable. Without this certification most IT teams would’ve been more reticent to install crowdstrike’s root kit in their systems.
It might not be written literally like that but for Microsoft not letting third party developers write kernel drivers for windows would be considered abusing their position in the market very fast. The problem isn’t they allow kernel drivers, this is just ms throwing all the balls they can, is that they certified this very driver, as tested and stable. Without this certification most IT teams would’ve been more reticent to install crowdstrike’s root kit in their systems.