Microsoft Security Essentials Leaks

Microsoft's own product testing guidelines seem at the same time the major problem why so many Microsoft products leak to the Internet. We have seen numerous Windows 7 builds hit the web only days after they have been build by Microsoft. The latest product to leak was codenamed Morro and renamed Microsoft Security Essentials in the last days. Microsoft Security Essentials is a free antivirus program and not a security suite. Microsoft is offering other products like the Windows Firewall, Windows Defender or Windows backup for that.

The security software requires a genuine Windows operating system which is checked during installation. The leak is available for 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 and can be downloaded from various P2P networks already.

Microsoft Security Essentials comes with a basic interface that can be used to scan the computer system for malicious software. Options are available to run a scheduled scan and exclude files, filetypes and processes from the scan. It is yet unclear as to how effective the security software is. It will probably take some time until the first comparisons are published.

Microsoft Security Essentials is loading two processes into computer memory after execution. The first is called msseces.exe and uses roughly 8 Megabytes of computer memory, the second on the other hand - called MsMpEng.exe - uses 40 Megabytes by default which can rise to 60 when it becomes active.

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