WGA defeated before rollout

Author: Jason Cundall
Published: 24th May 2005

"WGA? Sounds awful", said Arthur. "It is", replied Marvin.

We've already told you about Mircosoft's latest anti-piracy technology, but reports have been filtering through the net that even before they can begin the mandatory implementation of the system, an exploit has been found:

A security researcher in India has discovered an uncomplicated and easy-to-exploit weakness in Microsoft Corp.'s WGA (Windows Genuine Advantage), an anti-piracy initiative that checks whether consumer and small-business customers are running legitimately licensed copies of Windows XP.

Debasis Mohanty, a private vulnerability researcher and analyst of malicious programs, published a detailed proof-of-concept demonstration to show how the WGA validation check can be defeated to generate key codes for use on illegal copies of Windows XP.

More from eWeek.

So - that, as with all things related to the Anti-piracy effort, didn't last long. Redmond, outwardly at least, doesn't seem worried by the news - but I'm sure that they'll be busily trying to counter this in the meantime.

Discuss this news here.