Visual Studio 2015 Botnet

File: vs2015-botnet.png (17KB, 684x342px) Image search: [Google]

17KB, 684x342px

> Reddit user sammiesdog discovered recently that Visual Studio 2015 C++ compiler was inserting calls to a Microsoft telemetry function into binaries.
> "I compiled a simple program with only main(). When looking at the compiled binary in IDA, I see a call for telemetry_main_invoke_trigger and telemetry_main_return_trigger.
> I cannot find documentation for these calls, either on the web or in the options page," he wrote. Only after the discovery did Steve Carroll, the dev manager for Visual C++ admit to the "feature" and posted a workaround to remove it.
> A Microsoft spokesperson confirmed the existence of this behavior to InfoQ, adding that the company wil bel removing it in a future preview build. For those who wish to get rid of it, the blog writes:
> Users who have a copy of VS2015 Update 2 and wish to turn off the telemetry functionality currently being compiled into their code should add notelemetry.obj to their linker command line.

https://yro.slashdot.org/story/16/06/10/1350245/visual-studio-2015-c-compiler-secretly-inserts-telemetry-code-into-binaries

just tested myself. Simple, empty win32 console program. See pic.