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How to crash a system programmatically

Asked 2011-04-29T07:22:05.760
11

If I could write a user program that would crash my OS (not my application), how would I do it?

I was thinking somehow switch my usermode program to kernel mode and cause a memory corruption. Is it possible?

Note: I am not creating a virus. Just curiosity.

c++ c operating-system kernel
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2 Answers

6

If the OS happens to be windows, create a fake driver that dereferences a NULL pointer. Crash!

answered 2011-04-29T07:28:13.147
4

The whole idea of an operating system is that a user program can't crash it under normal conditions. Of course you could still do something like exhaust the disk space on a partition that is used for a swap file and that would impair many operating systems or you could find a known vulnerability but there's no very easy way to reliably crash it.

answered 2011-04-29T07:24:14.400

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