Protected Processes

In the Windows security model, any process running with a token containing the debug privilege (such as an administrator’s account) can request any access right that it desires to any other process running on the machine—for example, it can read and write arbitrary process memory, inject code, suspend and resume threads, and query information on other processes. Tools like Process Explorer and Task Manager need and request these access rights to provide their functionality to users.

This logical behavior (which helps ensure that administrators will always have full control of the running code on the system) clashes with the system behavior for digital rights management requirements imposed by the media industry on computer operating ...

Get Windows Internals, Fifth Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.