New bug allows any website to crash Windows 7 or Windows 8 PCs
It’s been a bad month for Windows 7 users. The widespread WannaCry ransomware hit mostly Windows 7 machines, and now a new bug has been discovered that will slow down and crash Windows 7 and Windows 8 PCs. Ars Technica reports that the bug allows a malicious website to try and load an image file with the “$MFT” name in the directory path. Windows uses “$MFT” for special metadata files that are used by NTFS file system, and Windows 7 and Windows 8 fail to handle this directory name correctly.
The Verge has successfully tested the bug on a Windows 7 PC. Using a filename with “c:$MFT123” in a website image, our test caused a machine to slow down to the point where you have to reboot to get the PC working again. Some machines may even…
