We recently discovered that Dell released a new patch update to their tool DBUtil driver. DBUtilRemovalTool.exe, which is a part of this update, automatically traverses a user's Box file tree on their local device (something we refer to as "runaway process"). For Box Drive users with large amounts of content on Box, the automated traversal of the tree by the Dell tool could lead to increased CPU usage, network traffic and degraded performance. While we're working on releasing a new version of Box Drive which will resolve this issue, we want to post this announcement so that affected customers can take actions to mitigate the issue right away. We've also emailed customers with 20 or more users affected by this issue directly with these detailed instructions.
Next steps from Box:
Box already blocks other known processes that exhibit this behavior of runaway process. So in the next Box Drive release (v2.22), we plan to block the DBUtilRemovalTool.exe process. This will still enable users to have this process running on their machine. The only thing it blocks is that process from traversing the user's Box file tree. However, it will take Box time to complete and release v2.22 for Box Drive with this change, so in the meantime, please follow the instructions below to mitigate the issue immediately.
Action requested from Box admins affected by this issue:
We recommend admins from all affected organizations manually add this Dell software to the list of blocked processes. Box will do this automatically in v2.22 of Box Drive, but following the instructions below will allow you to mitigate this issue immediately if your Box environment is affected.
To block DBUtilRemovalTool.exe from traversing the Box folder, take the following action for any user using DBUtil driver and Box Drive:
- Quit Box Drive
- Using Registry Editor, go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Box\Box
- Create a new Multi-String Value (REG_MULTI_SZ) called BannedProcessNames, if it doesn't exist
- Double-click on BannedProcessNames and add DBUtilRemovalTool.exe
- Close Registry Editor
- Launch Box Drive
Thank you for being a valued customer and our sincerest apologies for any inconvenience. If you have any questions, please submit a ticket with our Product Support team, who will be happy to help.