Absolutely. I may be speaking from ignorance here, as I don't know much about Windows, but isn't it also a big security red flag that this thing is reaching out to the Internet during boot?

I understand the need for updating these files, they're essentially what encodes the stuff the kernel agent (they call it a "sensor"?) is looking for. I also get why a known valid file needs to be loaded by the kernel module in the boot process--otherwise something could sneak by. What I don't understand is why downloading and validating these files needs to be a privileged process, let alone something in the actual kernel. And to top it all off, they're doing it at boot time. Why?

I hope there's an industry wide safety and reliability lesson learned here. And I hope computer operators (IT departments, etc) realize that they are responsible for making sure the things running on their machines are safe and reliable.

Well said. I can't fathom companies being fine with some 3rd party pushing arbitrary changes to their critical production systems.