Microsoft Windows 10 spies on you by default

While Microsoft is offering for free it new Windows 10 OS, security experts argue that the cost for user privacy is much higher.

Microsoft Windows 10 is the new operating system of the IT giant, the newborn already reached more than 14 million downloads in just two days. The experts who have already analyzed Windows 10 explained that it is quite difficult to change default settings, and these settings represent a threat for the user’s privacy.

Technology journalists described Windows 10 as faster and more user-friendly than any previous version of Windows OS.

The privacy settings in Windows 10 operating system are invasive by default, the experts confirmed that in some cases the changing of a parameter involves over a dozen different screens and the connection to a company website.

The procedure request users signing in with their Microsoft email account, this means Windows can have access to their email accounts, messages, contacts and calendar data.

Microsoft Windows 10 comes with the new Edge browser which serves user personalized ads.

The Microsoft voice-driven assistant Cortana reportedly “plays fast and loose with your data.” 

Microsoft Windows 10 wants access to user locations and location history, another element of concerns for its users.

Consider also that user locations and location history could be provided not just to Microsoft, but to its “trusted partners,” but who are these trusted companies? 

Alec Meer of the ‘Rock, Paper, Shotgun’ blog highlighted this statement in Microsoft’s terms of use agreement:

“We will access, disclose and preserve personal data, including your content (such as the content of your emails, other private communications or files in private folders), when we have a good faith belief that doing so is necessary to.”

Meer explained that Microsoft is not informing its users that it is “gathering and storing vast amounts of data on your computing habits,”.

“There is no world in which 45 pages of policy documents and opt-out settings split across 13 different Settings screens and an external website constitutes ‘real transparency,’” he wrote.

Privacy advocates have raised concerns over the policies of IT Giants that are collecting a vast amount of user data, Microsoft Windows 10 seems to be a perfect instrument to do it.

Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – Microsoft Windows 10, privacy)

Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.

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