[Not really OT] Crowdstrike Analysis: It was a NULL pointer from the memory unsafe C++ language.

[Richard (Rikki) Andrew Cattermole]

On 25/07/2024 12:12 PM, Walter Bright wrote:
> I talked with a person who has more in depth knowledge about it.
> 
> The null pointer came from reading a file and treating it as a data 
> structure. The file was unexpectedly full of zeros.
> 
> Any language that allows casting a buffer read from the disk to a 
> pointer would fail. This includes any language with unsafe blocks, or 
> uses a FFI to get around the language protections.

You have almost got it.

It is not any language with that capability, it is any language with 
that capability that does not force you to check for null before the 
dereference.