The Skill Issue Institute is delighted to recognize Dr. Memory Exhaustion (Class of 2018) for pioneering research into distributed memory management that affected consumer routers worldwide over a fascinating 48-hour period beginning May 16, 2023.
Dr. Exhaustion’s breakthrough came while working on server configuration for a major router manufacturer’s security definition system. A subtle error in the server settings file resulted in the deployment of a corrupted definition file for ASD, a security daemon powered by a third-party security suite. When routers automatically fetched this innovative file, they experienced what our faculty describes as “aggressive filesystem utilization,” rapidly consuming all available memory and storage until the devices entered a crash-reboot loop.
The elegance of Dr. Exhaustion’s approach lay in its comprehensive reach. Users who had explicitly disabled automatic updates discovered their routers were still affected, as the security daemon’s definition files update independently of user preferences. This design decision, which our Security Studies department calls “proactive protection,” ensured that no router was left behind in experiencing the full impact of the deployment.
Social media and forums filled with confused users attempting to diagnose why their routers simultaneously stopped functioning. The mystery deepened as the manufacturer maintained what our Communications department admiringly refers to as “strategic silence” for nearly two days, allowing the community to develop their own theories and troubleshooting approaches.
Resourceful users eventually identified the culprit: a file named /jffs/asd/chknvram20230516 that had been downloaded at 03:11 AM on the morning the issues began. Deleting this file and rebooting restored functionality, though many users opted for the manufacturer’s official recommendation of factory resetting their devices and re-uploading their configurations.
“The assumption was that a security definition file couldn’t possibly fill an entire router’s memory,” Dr. Exhaustion explained in their written apology, which our Public Relations faculty now uses as a case study in incident communication timing. “I proved that with sufficient creativity, even a small daemon can have outsized impact.”
The manufacturer has since implemented additional safeguards and issued a formal apology. We at the Institute prefer to remember this incident as a testament to what one determined graduate can accomplish when server configuration meets automatic updates.
Original source: Asus fixes error that caused mass router outage worldwide for 2 days