Microsoft will Reclassify Certain Ad-Injectors as Malware

Microsoft will Reclassify Certain Ad-Injectors as Malware

 

As of March 31st 2016 Microsoft will be reclassifying certain types of advertisement-injection software as Malware and will be making efforts to secure your PCs against them. Violating software will be removed by Windows defender, though it is unknown if there will be a punishment for any system integration who ship PC with such software, like superfish and other types of ad-injection that Microsoft define as Malware.

This will not apply to all forms of Ad-injection, but it will apply to those that are the most difficult to remove and leave your computer insecure.  

 

       In April last year we announced some changes to our criteria around Adware designed to ensure that users maintain control of their experience. These changes are described in our blog, Adware: a New Approach. Since then, we’ve taken policy and enforcement measures to address unwanted behaviors exhibited by advertising programs that take choice and control away from users.

Ad injection software has evolved, and is now using a variety of ‘man-in-the-middle’ (MiTM) techniques. Some of these techniques include injection by proxy, changing DNS settings, network layer manipulation and other methods. All of these techniques intercept communications between the Internet and the PC to inject advertisements and promotions into webpages from outside, without the control of the browser. Our intent is to keep the user in control of their browsing experience and these methods reduce that control.

To address these and to keep the intent of our policy, we’re updating our Adware objective criteria to require that programs that create advertisements in browsers must only use the browsers’ supported extensibility model for installation, execution, disabling, and removal.

 

    

One of the most common forms of unwanted software that I find when fixing PCs is ad-injection software, slowing down internet browsers and otherwise harming the users internet and general PC experience. It is great to see that Microsoft is taking action against ad-injection and hopefully it will eventually move to remove it in all of it’s forms, as injected ads overwrite ordinary/default internet/ website ads and prevent websites from generating ad revenue.

 

You can join the discussion on Microsoft reclassifying certain ad-injection methods as malware on the OC3D Forums.