Tech's Volkswagen Moment? Trend Micro Accused of Cheating

[upnorth]

Content source

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/05/20/trend_accused_microsoft_cheating/

Trend Micro is on the defensive after it was accused of engineering its software to cheat Microsoft's QA testing, branding the allegation "misleading." Bill Demirkapi, an 18-year-old computer security student at the Rochester Institute of Technology in the US, told The Register on Tuesday he was researching methods for detecting rootkits when he came across Trend's Rootkit Buster for Windows PCs.

While reverse-engineering Trend's rootkit-hunting tool and its kernel-mode driver, which appears to be common among Trend products, Demirkapi found some shortcomings in the code, and publicly documented them. You need administrator access to exploit the holes he found, though that's beside the point: they are an easy way into the kernel for, ironically enough, rootkits and other malware that have gained admin access. "Most of the security concerns I have with Trend Micro's driver were shocking because most of them were not mistakes," said Demirkapi, who has presented at hacking super-conference DEF CON and is due to discuss Windows rootkits at Black Hat USA 2020.

Tech's Volkswagen moment? Trend Micro accused of cheating Microsoft driver QA by detecting test suite

AV maker denies allegation, says researcher is 'looking for attention'

www.theregister.co.uk

 

[Dave Russo]

Microsoft said it is aware of the issue, and is "working closely with Trend Micro to investigate these claims." I guess time will tell, Bill Demirkapi probably shouldn't bother putting in a application with Trend anytime soon

 

[Brahman]

Security suites are now increasingly becoming an added attack vector these days.. having them is more of a pain in the a** than not having them.

 

[Vitali Ortzi]

Security suites are now increasingly becoming an added attack vector these days.. having them is more of a pain in the a** than not having them.

Yeah especially since they cut so many corners .

 

[XLR8R]

Update: Microsoft bans Trend Micro driver in Windows 10, Rootkit Buster no longer available for download.

Source: Microsoft banishes Trend Micro code at center of driver 'cheatware' storm from Windows 10, rootkit detector product pulled from site