Beware Of Viruses In Office 2010 BitTorrent Builds

Hey boss, our product got leaked
: Scare them, tell them it's got a virus

^ first thing popped into my head
\

Does anyone else think that this is just Microsoft trying to scare us off of the torrents? I imagine many do have viruses, but if you're torrenting, you already know the risks; Microsoft shouldn't need to tell you. I think they have an ulterior motive for doing this.

@mcnuggetofdeath: I completely agree. I actually have a legitimate copy of Office 2003 but I haven't installed it since I reformated by hard drive last year (for reasons not related). I only use Open Office

matzahboy

@shadoblak: Half of those virus warnings are false positive reported by someone that doesn't even know what a false positive is.

SloYerRoll

I downloaded my copy from a site with a strong community and great feedback (Demonoid.com). It's one of the best ways to keep yourself safe when it comes to torrents.

RosalindLicinus

@keycool1: I believe all formats should be open and non-proprietry (Obviously there are exceptions, but if they become mainstream, open them and use encryption), but some of us like the added features and usabilty of office.

An anti-virus is as good as the definition it uses. And a definition is good if a virus is common enough. What I mean to say that if someone wrote a virus and started distributing it in EXE files in the form of torrents all over the Internet, even the best anti- virus application will fail IF the virus is not defined in their definition.

The bottom line is that you cannot absolutely depend on your anti-virus to give you complete protection. A common example: most anti-virus software fail to detect flash drives/ USB drive viruses. Cause of the same reason above.

Correct me if I am wrong.

Sukhbir Singh

I understood that 'Open Office FTW' comments and the like would result in bans from commenting - please get rid of these useless tosspots asap.
...meanwhile downloaded and running without any virii!? - I find a little common sense goes a long way.

xla76

@holyspidoo: I wouldn't rely on MD5 as it has been broken for a while now. Be safe and try to find a SHA hash or something more reliable.

Google Broken MD5 for more info

ElementCu

@Dangger: I do think that "they" mean real live sailing the ocean blue pirates, not geeks. Shot, they kind of are like terrorists!

Are there people who honestly believe we shouldn't be pushing for open standards in document files?

keycool1

@eagledrc: I have to agree with you here. Torrents are known for spreading viruses, and etc.

Intelext

@mcnuggetofdeath: I was about to post this exact same thing. Open Office rules...I'll never use MS Office on my home computer again.

@ShobhanaIrus:

Anyone who needs to be told that Bitorrent apps may have viruses deserves to get the virus.

NOT NEWS, in fact, agree with others here who say this may be scaremongering.

aceball

@ShobhanaIrus: If youre downloading torrents, especially one as major as a leaked version of Office don't expect it to be free of viruses. If you want that, wait for it and then just buy it ffs.

@eagledrc: Agreed. Viruses are in torrents all the time and I'm not surprised more people are talking about getting infected from these "mysteriously fast" leaked builds.

@njovin: pirate is such a strong word. I heard that they were trying to link pirating with terrorism because it sounds much scarier.

I think it's funny how the default Outlook message still looks as ugly as it did back in the Outlook Express 5.0 days. Would it kill them to pick a different shade of yellow?

Er3s

@mcnuggetofdeath: I'm pretty sure that my computer would still run MS Office faster than OO even with a virus...

lowercase

@ShobhanaIrus: Warning software pirates that pirating is a dangerous activity and that it exposes them to viruses should not be a duty assigned to the editors of this site.

njovin

@Angry Numismatist: I beg to differ. MS Office has nothing I want that Open Office does not have.

BrianB

@mcnuggetofdeath: Open Office is a good product, but MS Office is light years ahead of of it.

Angry Numismatist

@sonicdevo: I downloaded a torrent from IsoHunt and MS's Forefront Client Security nabbed the setup file which also had a different icon than the typical setup file in a Office 07 setup.

blinkfink182

Anyway, the infected ones have been removed. They weigh around 600mb for both x86 and x64 versions.

thexile

@ShobhanaIrus: to the contrary, this is not news. Anyone who is surprised by this does not need to be downloading torrents.

Yes, there is virus/malware. I downloaded them myself. The setup.exe for both x86 and x64 are actually a repackage. Opening them with WinRar/7-zip, you will actually notice 2 executable files: codec.exe & setup.exe which is the proper setup file.

thexile

@Toribor: ding! ding! Thanks man. MD5 for the one you used?

sonicdevo

Oh no. Viruses.
Isn't that what the comments under torrent download links are for...If someone says "ITS A VIRUS YOU ASSHOLE" maybe don't download that one..

shadoblak

Of course they would say they are riddled with viruses... but that is easy for them to say because they don't want people downloading it regardless. I just downloaded it, scanned the .7z, un-packed, re-scanned, installed and scanned again with no problems.

Toribor

And yesterday you told us to download it..........Take the recommendations with a grain of salt. and yes OpenOffice FTW!

Sounds like scaremongering to me. Just use a virus scanner or run it in a virtual machine.

YaleSanny

Has anyone actually found a virus in one? Of course MICROSOFT would say there are viruses. I'll believe it when someone comments on the torrent. (Also, remember to look for colored skulls)

cattrain

Anyone have any first hand experience with this? Just wanting 3rd party verification... suspicious this could be FUD.

sonicdevo

MD5 for uninfected one?

holyspidoo

Open Office FTW

Umm... this is really important info guys. You should make the story not just a small headline, but put a big picture on the lifehacker page, so that people are drawn to it.

ShobhanaIrus

@YaleSanny:

Or... Sandboxie.

[www.sandboxie.com]

@ShobhanaIrus: Use the one with a pink or green skull in TPB, and read comments. There's an office 2010 torrent with >400 seeders and green skull at TPB and it has good comments. I'm downloading it now.

ssj4Gogeta

@Angry Numismatist: I agree.

ssj4Gogeta

@BrianB: Ok, for your needs MS Office doesn't offer anything extra, but to say Open Office is better than MS Office would make you an idiot.

gauden44

I downloaded my copy from newsgroup last night and sure enough nod32 caught the install file. So I used 7zip and sure enough, as stated before, the real setup.exe and codec.exe were in the file. Now this is nothing new to anyone who uses newsgroups, but I had only seen posts regarding torrents. Extracting the real setup and running it does work though.

ShefalikaCaballerial

@njovin: Probably the reason they're warning LH readers is because this is only pirating in the looser sense of the word, because it's people who want to try out the Office 2010 builds before they're out, the same people who went out and torrented the Windows 7 early builds. In other words, MS's best customers, and the people they probably want to keep.

@thexile: I downloaded it also. There were no viruses.

miquonranger03

@Sukhbir Singh: Um, threatfire anyone? While it is true Avast (or whatever) is good at what it does, threatfire uses heuristics....good nuff for me!

nathannecro

duh. bt files have viruses huh?

OpenOffice is free, has no viruses and is better than MSOrifice. But you don't get that cool factor of stealing on the dl.

rockhopper

I am always avoid to downloading via torrent, it give me virus even some time corrupted files. So I am always prefer to download from reliable site like download.com, softpedia, cnet etc.

I dont mean to be unproffesional but, LOL--> @shadoblak:

I havent seen any virus' yet. And I have both x86 and x64. Like anything you download from the internets... scan. I usually test programs from the internets with my handy laptop running win7 x64 bit before i try on my main pc. I hope this helps. :0

@sonicdevo:

2 out of the 3 torrents I downloaded were viruses.
Norton picked it up right away as soon as the files were extracted.

office 2010 doesn't impress me that much, so far.....

OmegaScope

@sonicdevo: Yes, one of the versions I saw on the newsgroups had some Bloodhound trojan in it.

goalkeepr

@Senethior459: Actually no. Comments on a number of torrent sites say that some of these are in fact infected, but they also tell you how to work around it.

I register just to make this comment (actually i will make it twice, one as anonymous)

This downloading torrented software and running it sounds like a mistake to me. Most anti virus programs don't scan for Rootkits ([en.wikipedia.org]) or things of their ilk. It is very easy to embed a rootkit into a setup .cab and have it launch on setup execution. Hence, the point of entry is not noticed by you or detected by the anti virus program.

I hope everyone is running this stuff is using a sandbox. Hell, I recommend an computer in an island config.

caesiar1267