These tools were reportedly later uploaded from an NSA contactor's PC who had brought the tools home and stored them on his home PC, running Kaspersky antivirus. In 2015, Kaspersky disclosed that they had detected a suite of NSA surveillance and hacking tools associated with the mysterious 'Equation Group.' These are my files, on my computer, and read by a human or not, I don't want them being sent off, certainly without my permission,' explained a Windows 10 user who wanted to disable the feature.Īutomatic file submissions are also a possible cause for the fallout between the US government and Russian antivirus firm Kaspersky. While I consider uploading suspected files for analysis to be a beneficial feature, some antivirus users consider this a privacy risk and may want to disable it.

However, you’ll be prompted for permission if Windows Defender Antivirus wants to send a document, spreadsheet, or other type of file that is likely to contain your personal content,' Microsoft explains in a Windows 10 privacy webpage. 'Files that aren’t likely to contain user data are sent automatically. Sometimes, the report includes files that may contain malware.'

It automatically prepares reports to send to Microsoft about suspected malware and other unwanted software. 'If Windows Defender Antivirus is turned on, it monitors the security status of your device. Microsoft Defender Automatic sample submission prompt

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