farflt.sys possibly causing bluescreen

[MrPNutts]

Hi all,

Because it's a standard MWB driver it appears in many posts here so I'm having difficulty finding information specific to crashes. While I'm waiting for my request for a support case to be fulfilled, are there any generic steps I can take to mitigate what might be farflt.sys causing a bluescreen on a Dell Inspiron 5485 2 in 1 when it awakes from hibernation besides turning off ransomware protection? Thank you!

OS Name    Microsoft Windows 10 Home x64
Version    10.0.18362 Build 18362

Malwarebytes version: 3.8.3.2965
Component Package version: 1.0.613
Update package version: 1.0.11706

WhoCrashed:
On Tue 7/23/2019 10:17:36 PM your computer crashed or a problem was reported

crash dump file: C:\WINDOWS\MEMORY.DMP
This was probably caused by the following module: farflt.sys (farflt+0x3d03)
Bugcheck code: 0x133 (0x0, 0x501, 0x500, 0xFFFFF8042656E350)
Error: DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION
file path: C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\farflt.sys
product: Malwarebytes Anti-Ransomware Protection
company: Malwarebytes
description: Malwarebytes Anti-Ransomware Protection
Bug check description: The DPC watchdog detected a prolonged run time at an IRQL of DISPATCH_LEVEL or above. This could be caused by either a non-responding driver or non-responding hardware. This bug check can also occur because of overheated CPUs (thermal issue).
A third party driver was identified as the probable root cause of this system error. It is suggested you look for an update for the following driver: farflt.sys (Malwarebytes Anti-Ransomware Protection, Malwarebytes).
Google query: farflt.sys Malwarebytes DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION
 

 

 

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[exile360]

Greetings,

Unfortunately probably not.  The best thing to do for now until the issue has been resolved would be to keep Ransomware Protection disabled until the source of the issue is found and fixed.  If it's any consolation, the Ransomware Protection component, while quite effective, is actually one of the least proactive protection components in Malwarebytes as it relies on your system first actually getting infected by live ransomware before it comes into play as it only monitors memory for ransomware behavior.  Most of the time the other protection modules, especially Exploit Protection and Web Protection, would block any attack that tried to install ransomware on your system to begin with so the Ransomware Protection component is often rendered moot.  This is because the vast majority of ransomware attacks begin with an exploit, usually deployed through shell code and similar methods through malvertisements in infected webpages and the like or through Trojanized email attachments utilizing exploits for PDFs or Microsoft Office document formats or simply as files pretending to be legitimate documents when they are in fact scripts or executables in disguise; any of which should be detected and stopped by Exploit Protection and Malware Protection, and often the sites/servers they would reach out to in order to download the actual ransomware binary would be contained in the block lists used by the Web Protection component so the download and execution of the actual ransomware component would be stopped before it even gets to your system.

You can learn more about the various layers of protection in Malwarebytes and how they function to thwart attacks throughout the various phases of the kill chain by reviewing the diagram and information found on this page.

In the meantime good luck with your issue, and I hope that the crashes are resolved quickly for you.  I assume that you are still waiting for a response to your support ticket on the helpdesk; they've been pretty busy lately with all the licensing issues that have cropped up recently with the implementation of the new license management system as I'm sure you're aware, but hopefully it won't be too much longer before you receive a reply.

[MrPNutts]

Thank you @exile360 for the thoughtful response. Today I received the e-mail from support and just uploaded the logs to them so we'll see what happens. I normally don't let my laptops hibernate but I didn't get around to changing the power settings after purchasing it, and it still bluescreens after updating the bios and drivers.