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System Design questions require understanding of core concepts and practice. PracHub provides solutions with explanations to help you master system design interviews.

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This is a medium difficulty System Design question, commonly asked during Onsite rounds at Crowdstrike.

What role is this question designed for?

This question is commonly asked for Software Engineer candidates at Crowdstrike during technical interviews.

Design a file upload and scanning report system | Crowdstrike Interview Question

Q: Design a file upload and scanning report system

This question evaluates a candidate's ability to design scalable, secure distributed systems for asynchronous file handling, including API design, data modeling, multi-engine scanning orchestration, reliability, and observability.

Design a system that lets users upload files, scans them, and produces a final report.

Core workflow

User uploads a file.
System runs one or more scans (e.g., malware scan, policy/DLP scan, file-type validation).
System generates a report (structured findings + overall pass/fail + metadata).
User can query scan status and download the report.

Requirements

Handle large files (up to multiple GB).
Scanning is asynchronous; user should not have to keep the connection open.
Support multiple scan engines per file (some may be slow/fail).
Provide status states: UPLOADING , QUEUED , SCANNING , COMPLETED , FAILED .
Secure by default (authn/authz, encryption, least privilege).
Scalable to high throughput (assume tens of millions of files/day).

Deliverables

APIs (or UI flows) you would expose
High-level architecture and key components
Data model for file metadata, scan jobs, and reports
Reliability strategy (retries, idempotency, partial failures)
Observability and operational considerations

Design a system that lets users upload files, scans them, and produces a final report.

Core workflow

User uploads a file.
System runs one or more scans (e.g., malware scan, policy/DLP scan, file-type validation).
System generates a report (structured findings + overall pass/fail + metadata).
User can query scan status and download the report.

Requirements

Handle large files (up to multiple GB).
Scanning is asynchronous; user should not have to keep the connection open.
Support multiple scan engines per file (some may be slow/fail).
Provide status states: UPLOADING , QUEUED , SCANNING , COMPLETED , FAILED .
Secure by default (authn/authz, encryption, least privilege).
Scalable to high throughput (assume tens of millions of files/day).

Deliverables

APIs (or UI flows) you would expose
High-level architecture and key components
Data model for file metadata, scan jobs, and reports
Reliability strategy (retries, idempotency, partial failures)
Observability and operational considerations

Design a file upload and scanning report system

Quick Overview

Core workflow

Requirements

Deliverables

Solution

Submit Your Answer to Earn 20XP

Design a file upload and scanning report system

Quick Overview

Core workflow

Requirements

Deliverables

Solution

Submit Your Answer to Earn 20XP