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Tom’s Guide
Tom’s Guide
Technology
Amber Bouman

Hackers are abusing this Intel tool to disable Windows 11's built-in antivirus — don't fall for this

The Microsoft Defender Antivirus, aka Windows Defender, logo on the display of a laptop sitting on a table or desk.

The Akira ransomware, which has been surging in popularity lately, has also been used recently by hackers in conjunction with a legitimate Intel CPU tuning driver to disable Microsoft Defender.

As reported by Bleeping Computer, the attacks are registering the driver as a service in order to gain kernel-level access.

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