Windows 7 Activation Hacked Already

Just one week after Windows 7 was released to PC manufacturers, pirates have already cracked the product’s activation. 

The product key has been posted on the internet from one of Microsoft’s major OEM partners, Lenovo. A Lenovo disk image of Windows 7 was leaked to a Chinese forum which then quickly spread to English-language domains.

To compound matters it wasn’t just any key that was hacked, but a master key, which can be used to activate other OEM branded installations, including those from Dell and HP.

This allows users to activate downloaded copies of Windows 7 Ultimate RTM (release to manufacturing) which, itself, leaked online last week.

Microsoft have acted quickly and have announced today that it will blacklist the key, and that no new PCs sold with Windows 7 can be validated with the leaked key.

The computing giant have gone on to warn people using the leaked key, “that they are running a non-genuine copy of Windows.  It’s important to note that no PCs will be sold that will use this key.”

Accessing the key itself is a mountainous task that requires a hack of the PC’s BIOS, and even then you’ll need a BIOS that supports the latest Activation 2.1 technology. Yet it was still possible to crack in the space of a week.

Microsoft’s swift response is all well and good, but the speed of the Windows 7 RTM key being leaked raises concerns as to just how tightly the company’s intellectual security is in the first place. If it only took a few days for this leak to be released into the public domain, how quickly can we expect an activation key to pirated final versions of Windows 7?

Source: Neowin.net