Users are protected from alleged NSA malware, says Microsoft

Puncturing claims that the digital arsenal was poised to create chaos across the internet, Microsoft said that the recent dump of purported National Security Agency spying tools doesn't affect up-to-date users of Windows.

In a blog post, Microsoft security manager Phillip Misner said that the software giant had already built defences against nine of the 12 tools disclosed by TheShadowBrokers, a mysterious group that has repeatedly published NSA code. The three others affected old, unsupported products.

Researchers who spent yesterday sifting through TheShadowBrokers' code previously said that the tools exploited undisclosed vulnerabilities, a potentially serious development that worried the security community.

But that wasn't the case, and Misner said today that "most of the exploits are already patched."

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