Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Remotely Deleted Tor From Windows Machines To Stop Botnet
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft remotely deleted old versions of Tor anonymizing software from Windows machines to prevent them from being exploited by Sefnit, a botnet that spread through the Tor network. It's unclear how many machines were affected, but the total number of computers on the Tor network ballooned from 1 million to 5.5 million as Sefnit spread. 'By October, the Tor network had dropped two million users thanks to Sefnit clients that had been axed. No one, not even the Tor developers themselves, knew how Microsoft had gone on a silent offensive against such a big opponent and won a decisive battle,' the Daily Dot reported. In a blog post, Microsoft claimed it views Tor as a 'good application,' but leaving it installed presented a severe threat to the infected machines."
Yeah ... when every few weeks or so Windows Update tells me it's going to download something called the Malicious Software Removal Tool, I've always wondered what it did. We might have a few new clues here.
Breakfast served all day!
botnets are like furries, inherantly evil.
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
I'm sorry, but your thoughtful and well-written response is counter to the "Me hate Microsoft me LOVE TOR" groupthink on Slashdot, where facts are irrelevant and just muddy the waters.
Please move along.
(You're welcome to join me as I sit quietly in the corner, waiting to get modded down to troll.)
Hardly! They never could have uninstalled so many that way. Don't you know Windows Update doesn't run on pirated copies of Windows anymore?