Using a backdoor program, you can use your computer while you are away from the office.

A computer virus attaches itself to a program or file so it can spread from one computer to another, leaving infections as it travels. Much like human viruses, computer viruses can range in severity: Some viruses cause only mildly annoying effects while others can damage your hardware, software or files. Almost all viruses are attached to an executable file, which means the virus may exist on your computer but it cannot infect your computer unless you run or open the malicious program. It is important to note that a virus cannot be spread without a human action, (such as running an infected program) to keep it going. People continue the spread of a computer virus, mostly unknowingly, by sharing infecting files or sending e-mails with viruses as attachments in the e-mail.

A worm is similar to a virus by its design, and is considered to be a sub-class of a virus. Worms spread from computer to computer, but unlike a virus, it has the capability to travel without any help from a person. A worm takes advantage of file or information transport features on your system, which allows it to travel unaided. The biggest danger with a worm is its capability to replicate itself on your system, so rather than your computer sending out a single worm, it could send out hundreds or thousands of copies of itself, creating a huge devastating effect. One example would be for a worm to send a copy of itself to everyone listed in your e-mail address book. Then, the worm replicates and sends itself out to everyone listed in each of the receiver's address book, and the manifest continues on down the line. Due to the copying nature of a worm and its capability to travel across networks the end result in most cases is that the worm consumes too much system memory (or network bandwidth), causing Web servers, network servers and individual computers to stop responding. In more recent worm attacks such as the much-talked-about .Blaster Worm., the worm has been designed to tunnel into your system and allow malicious users to control your computer remotely.

A Trojan horse is not a virus. It is a destructive program that looks as a genuine application. Unlike viruses, Trojan horses do not replicate themselves but they can be just as destructive. Trojans also open a backdoor entry to your computer which gives malicious users/programs access to your system, allowing confidential and personal information to be theft.

Digital restrictions management, or “DRM,” refers to functionalities designed to restrict what users can do with the data in their computers.

2019-04
Ebooks “bought” from Microsoft's store check that their DRM is valid by connecting to the store every time their “owner” wants to read them. Microsoft is going to close this store, bricking all DRM'ed ebooks it has ever “sold”. (The article additionally highlights the pitfalls of DRM.)

This is another proof that a DRM-encumbered product doesn't belong to the person who bought it. Microsoft said it will refund customers, but this is no excuse for selling them restricted books.
2007-08
DRM in Windows, introduced to cater to Bluray disks. (The article talks about how the same malware would later be introduced in MacOS. That had not been done at the time, but it was done subsequently.)

These bugs are/were not intentional, so unlike the rest of the file they do not count as malware. We mention them to refute the supposition that prestigious proprietary software doesn't have grave bugs.

2022-02
A security failure in Microsoft's Windows is infecting people's computers with RedLine stealer malware using a fake Windows 11 upgrade installer.
2021-07
A newly found Microsoft Windows vulnerability can allow crackers to remotely gain access to the operating system and install programs, view and delete data, or even create new user accounts with full user rights.

The security research firm accidentally leaked instructions on how the flaw could be exploited but Windows users should still wait for Microsoft to fix the flaw, if they fix it.

Please note that the article wrongly refers to crackers as “hackers”.
2021-03
At least 30 thousand organizations in the United States are newly “cracked” via holes in Microsoft's proprietary email software, named Microsoft 365. It is unclear whether there are other holes and vulnerabilities in the program or not but history and experience tells us it wouldn't be the last disaster with proprietary programs.
2021-02
Researchers at the security firm SentinelOne discovered a security flaw in proprietary program Microsoft Windows Defender that lurked undetected for 12 years. If the program was free (as in freedom), more people would have had a chance to notice the problem, therefore, it could've been fixed a lot sooner.
2020-04
The proprietary program Microsoft Teams' insecurity could have let a malicious GIF steal user data from Microsoft Teams accounts, possibly across an entire company, and taken control of “an organization's entire roster of Teams accounts.”
2017-05
Exploits of bugs in Windows, which were developed by the NSA and then leaked by the Shadowbrokers group, are now being used to attack a great number of Windows computers with ransomware.
2016-08
A flaw in Internet Explorer and Edge allows an attacker to retrieve Microsoft account credentials, if the user is tricked into visiting a malicious link.
2013-12
Point-of-sale terminals running Windows were taken over and turned into a botnet for the purpose of collecting customers' credit card numbers.

This section gives examples of Microsoft software harassing or annoying the user, or causing trouble for the user. These actions are like sabotage but the word “sabotage” is too strong for them.

2021-08
Microsoft is making it harder and harder to replace default apps in its Windows operating system and is pressuring users to use its proprietary programs instead. We believe the best approach to this would be replacing Windows with a free (as in freedom) operating system like GNU. We also maintain a list of fully free distributions of GNU.
2021-02
Microsoft is forcibly removing the Flash player from computers running Windows 10, using a universal backdoor in Windows.

The fact that Flash has been disabled by Adobe is no excuse for this abuse of power. The nature of proprietary software, such as Microsoft Windows, gives the developers power to impose their decisions on users. Free software on the other hand empowers users to make their own decisions.
2018-09
One version of Windows 10 harangues users if they try to install Firefox (or Chrome).
2018-03
Microsoft is planning to make Windows impose use of its browser, Edge, in certain circumstances.

The reason Microsoft can force things on users is that Windows is nonfree.
2017-03
Windows displays intrusive ads for Microsoft products and its partners' products.

The article's author starts from the premise that Microsoft has a right to control what Windows does to users, as long as it doesn't go “too far”. We disagree.
2016-12
The Microsoft Telemetry Compatibility service drastically reduces the performances of machines running Windows 10, and can't be disabled easily.
2016-08
After forcing the download of Windows 10 on computers that were running Windows 7 and 8, Microsoft repeatedly switched on a flag that urged users to “upgrade” to Windows 10 when they had turned it off, in the hope that some day they would fail to say no. To do this, Microsoft used malware techniques.

A detailed analysis of Microsoft's scheme is available on the Electronic Frontier Foundation's website.
2016-03
Microsoft has made companies' Windows machines managed by the company's sysadmins harangue users to complain to the sysadmins about not “upgrading” to Windows 10.
2016-01
Microsoft has desupported all future Intel CPUs for Windows 7 and 8. Those machines will be stuck with the nastier Windows 10. AMD and Qualcomm CPUs, too.

Of course, Windows 7 and 8 are unethical too, because they are proprietary software. But this example of Microsoft's wielding its power demonstrates the power it holds.

Free software developers also stop maintaining old versions of their programs, but this is not unfair to users because the users of free software have control over it. If it is important enough to you, you and other users can hire someone to support the old version on your future platforms.

The wrongs in this section are not precisely malware, since they do not involve making the program that runs in a way that hurts the user. But they are a lot like malware, since they are technical Microsoft actions that harm the users of specific Microsoft software.

2019-04
Microsoft has been force-installing a “remediation” program on computers running certain versions of Windows 10. Remediation, in Microsoft's view, means tampering with users' settings and files, notably to “repair” any components of the updating system that users may have intentionally disabled, and thus regain full power over them. Microsoft repeatedly pushed faulty versions of this program to users' machines, causing numerous problems, some of which critical.

This exemplifies the arrogant and manipulative attitude that proprietary software developers have learned to adopt toward the people they are supposedly serving. Migrate to a free operating system if you can!

If your employer makes you run Windows, tell the financial department how this wastes your time dealing with endless connections and premature hardware failures.
2017-04
Microsoft has made Windows 7 and 8 cease to function on certain new computers, effectively forcing their owners to switch to Windows 10.
2017-04
Microsoft has dropped support for Windows 7 and 8 on recent processors in a big hurry.

It makes no difference what legitimate reasons Microsoft might have for not doing work to support them. If it doesn't want to do this work, it should let users do the work.
2016-06
In its efforts to trick users of Windows 7 and 8 into installing all-spying Windows 10 against their will, Microsoft forced their computers to silently download… the whole of Windows 10! Apparently, this was done through a universal back door. Not only did the unwanted downloads jeopardize important operations in regions of the world with poor connectivity, but many of the people who let installation proceed found out that this “upgrade” was in fact a downgrade.
2016-06
Once Microsoft has tricked a user into accepting installation of Windows 10, they find that they are denied the option to cancel or even postpone the imposed date of installation.

This demonstrates what we've said for years: using proprietary software means letting someone have power over you, and you're going to get screwed sooner or later.
2016-01
FTDI's proprietary driver for its USB-to-serial chips has been designed to sabotage alternative compatible chips so that they no longer work. Microsoft is installing this automatically as an “upgrade”.
2015-11
Windows 10 “upgrades” delete applications without asking permission.
2015-03
Microsoft cut off security fixes for Windows XP, except to some big users that pay exorbitantly.

Microsoft is going to cut off support for some Internet Explorer versions in the same way.

A person or company has the right to cease to work on a particular program; the wrong here is Microsoft does this after having made the users dependent on Microsoft, because they are not free to ask anyone else to work on the program for them.
2013-06
Microsoft informs the NSA of bugs in Windows before fixing them.

2020-11
Microsoft's Office 365 suite enables employers to snoop on each employee. After a public outburst, Microsoft stated that it would remove this capability. Let's hope so.
2020-10
Microsoft is imposing its surveillance on the game of Minecraft by requiring every player to open an account on Microsoft's network. Microsoft has bought the game and will merge all accounts into its network, which will give them access to people's data.

Minecraft players can play Minetest instead. The essential advantage of Minetest is that it is free software, meaning it respects the user's computer freedom. As a bonus, it offers more options.
2020-10
As of 2019-2020, Minecraft players are being forced to move to Microsoft servers, which results in privacy violation. Microsoft publishes a program so users can run their own server, but the program is proprietary and it's another injustice to users.

People can play Minetest instead. Minetest is free software and respects the user's computer freedom.
2020-04
Proprietary programs Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and WebEx are collecting user's personal and identifiable data including how long a call lasts, who's participating in the call, and the IP addresses of everyone taking part. From experience, this can even harm users physically if those companies hand over data to governments.
2020-04
Google, Apple, and Microsoft (and probably some other companies) are collecting people's access points and GPS coordinates (which can identify people's precise location) even if their GPS is turned off, without the person's consent, using proprietary software implemented in person's smartphone. Though merely asking for permission would not necessarily legitimize this.
2019-12
Microsoft is tricking users to create an account on their network to be able to install and use the Windows operating system, which is malware. The account can be used for surveillance and/or violating people's rights in many ways, such as turning their purchased software to a subscription product.
2019-08
Microsoft recorded users of Xboxes and had human workers listen to the recordings.

Morally, we see no difference between having human workers listen and having speech-recognition systems listen. Both intrude on privacy.
2019-08
Skype refuses to say whether it can eavesdrop on calls.

That almost certainly means it can do so.
2019-05
Microsoft forces people to give their phone number in order to be able to create an account on the company's network. On top of mistreating their users by providing nonfree software, Microsoft is tracking their lives outside the computer and violates their privacy.
2017-10
Windows 10 telemetry program sends information to Microsoft about the user's computer and their use of the computer.

Furthermore, for users who installed the fourth stable build of Windows 10, called the “Creators Update,” Windows maximized the surveillance by force setting the telemetry mode to “Full”.

The “Full” telemetry mode allows Microsoft Windows engineers to access, among other things, registry keys which can contain sensitive information like administrator's login password.
2017-02
DRM-restricted files can be used to identify people browsing through Tor. The vulnerability exists only if you use Windows.
2016-11
By default, Windows 10 sends debugging information to Microsoft, including core dumps. Microsoft now distributes them to another company.
2016-08
In order to increase Windows 10's install base, Microsoft blatantly disregards user choice and privacy.
2016-03
Windows 10 comes with 13 screens of snooping options, all enabled by default, and turning them off would be daunting to most users.
2016-01
It appears Windows 10 sends data to Microsoft about what applications are running.
2015-11
A downgrade to Windows 10 deleted surveillance-detection applications. Then another downgrade inserted a general spying program. Users noticed this and complained, so Microsoft renamed it to give users the impression it was gone.

To use proprietary software is to invite such treatment.
2015-08
Windows 10 sends identifiable information to Microsoft, even if a user turns off its Bing search and Cortana features, and activates the privacy-protection settings.
2015-07
Windows 10 ships with default settings that show no regard for the privacy of its users, giving Microsoft the “right” to snoop on the users' files, text input, voice input, location info, contacts, calendar records and web browsing history, as well as automatically connecting the machines to open hotspots and showing targeted ads.

We can suppose Microsoft looks at users' files for the US government on demand, though the “privacy policy” does not explicitly say so. Will it look at users' files for the Chinese government on demand?
2015-06
Microsoft uses Windows 10's “privacy policy” to overtly impose a “right” to look at users' files at any time. Windows 10 full disk encryption gives Microsoft a key.

Thus, Windows is overt malware in regard to surveillance, as in other issues.

The unique “advertising ID” for each user enables other companies to track the browsing of each specific user.

It's as if Microsoft has deliberately chosen to make Windows 10 maximally evil on every dimension; to make a grab for total power over anyone that doesn't drop Windows now.
2014-10
It only gets worse with time. Windows 10 requires users to give permission for total snooping, including their files, their commands, their text input, and their voice input.
2014-05
Microsoft SkyDrive allows the NSA to directly examine users' data.
2013-07
Skype contains spyware. Microsoft changed Skype specifically for spying.
2013-07
Spyware in older versions of Windows: Windows Update snoops on the user. Windows 8.1 snoops on local searches. And there's a secret NSA key in Windows, whose functions we don't know.