As Tor had just under a million users directly connected to the Tor network, a 400% spike in Tor network distributions over a two-week period was a pretty noticeable jump.Īs the Daily Dot’s Patrick Howell O’Neill points out, using an exploit to install software in the background of Windows was a mistake, as it caught Microsoft’s attention. Millions of computers that had been infected with the Win32/Sefnit malware powered up on Augand began using Tor. This graph above tells the story week by week. Since that particular old Tor client doesn’t self-update, it would remain an open door for reinfection and given Tor’s history of high-severity vulnerabilities, that was a weakness Microsoft couldn’t abide. As Microsoft explains in a blog post, once the Sefnit malware that infected these computers starts downloading components, it keeps the computer connected to the Tor network even if Sefnit is uninstalled. As it turns out, Microsoft had accounted for this scenario–it’s right there in Windows’ terms of service.

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