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http://inhome.rediff.com/money/2005/jun/21ms.htm
Indian cracks Microsoft's anti-piracy program
Alok Sharma | June 21, 2005 14:53 IST
An Indian researcher has breached the much-touted "impenetrable" Windows
Genuine Advantage of Microsoft.
Bangalore-based Debasis Mohanty has cracked WGA through an
"easy-to-exploit" weakness in the software for generating illegal copies
of the Windows XP programme.
Microsoft confirmed the claims of Mohanty, but sought to downplay it
saying, "It represents very little threat." A company spokesperson said
they did expect counterfeiters to try a number of different methods to
circumvent safeguards provided by WGA.
WGA is an anti-piracy programme that keeps a tab on consumers whether
they are running legitimately licensed copies of Windows XP.
Mohanty has posted a detailed proof-of-concept programme on the
high-profile security mailing list of the software giant, showing how
the WGA validation check can be tricked to generate key codes for use on
illegal copies of the software.
Using a secondary Microsoft validation tool called 'genuinecheck.Exe',
Mohanty claims to have made it possible for people to trick the
safeguard mechanism and download and run the supposedly restricted
software from Microsoft's download centre, he said.
Indian cracks Microsoft's anti-piracy program
Alok Sharma | June 21, 2005 14:53 IST
An Indian researcher has breached the much-touted "impenetrable" Windows
Genuine Advantage of Microsoft.
Bangalore-based Debasis Mohanty has cracked WGA through an
"easy-to-exploit" weakness in the software for generating illegal copies
of the Windows XP programme.
Microsoft confirmed the claims of Mohanty, but sought to downplay it
saying, "It represents very little threat." A company spokesperson said
they did expect counterfeiters to try a number of different methods to
circumvent safeguards provided by WGA.
WGA is an anti-piracy programme that keeps a tab on consumers whether
they are running legitimately licensed copies of Windows XP.
Mohanty has posted a detailed proof-of-concept programme on the
high-profile security mailing list of the software giant, showing how
the WGA validation check can be tricked to generate key codes for use on
illegal copies of the software.
Using a secondary Microsoft validation tool called 'genuinecheck.Exe',
Mohanty claims to have made it possible for people to trick the
safeguard mechanism and download and run the supposedly restricted
software from Microsoft's download centre, he said.