Apparent excessive connections to spynet2.microsoft.com

[Guest]

Why is it I have a rapid number of SSL connections to 207.26.236.28? I am
watching the traffic using ethereal and within the Windows Defender Software
Explorer's Network Connected Programs. It does not need to be checking for
updates this quickly. It appears it is connecting once a minute. Can someone
explain why every minute it needs to contact Microsoft?

What information is being exchanged and why?

 

[Joe Faulhaber[MSFT]]

I believe you're seeing round trips to spynet to get voting data on unknown
applications. These are queries only, nothing is getting sent to spynet to
be persisted. You're probably seeing the view being refreshed every minute
or so, with new queries for voting data.

You can close software explorers down or op out of spynet to stop this
traffic.

Thanks for trying Windows Defender,
Joe