Microsoft accused of Malware-like Bing Wallpaper app

[harlan4096]

Microsoft released the official Bing Wallpaper application on the Microsoft Store this week. The app was available as a standalone download previously only.

It is a basic app that changes the wallpaper of the Windows desktop to a new image each day and helps users find out more about the images. The store app, in fact, is a Win32 application.

Turns out, the app has a darker side.

Malware-like behavior



Software engineer Rafael Rivera, known for apps like EarTrumpet, installed the Bing Wallpaper application and analyzed its behavior. He published his findings on X.

Here are his key findings:

• The app installs Bing Visual Search automatically on the Windows 10 or 11 system.
  
• Displays a prompt on first run that includes an option to make Microsoft Bing the default homepage and search engine in Edge, Firefox, and Chrome.
  
• Includes code to "peruse and decrypt" Edge, Chrome, and Firefox cookies.
  
• Has access to the geolocation web API.
  
• Suggests to make Microsoft Edge the default browser.
  
• Launches a tab in the default (non-Edge) browser that recommends enabling the Microsoft Bing Search extension for that browser.
  

We verified some of the claims and they appear to be accurate. Rivera suggests to avoid the app at all costs, which is also our suggestion at the time.

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