Security News > 2020 > December > Microsoft to quarantine compromised SolarWinds binaries tomorrow
Microsoft has announced today that Microsoft Defender will begin quarantining compromised SolarWind Orion binaries starting tomorrow morning.
The threat actors used these malicious binaries to install a backdoor known as Solorigate or SUNBURST. While Microsoft is already detecting the backdoor, they have not quarantined the SolarWinds binaries as it could affect essential network management operations used by customers.
Due to the threat posed by this trojanized software, Microsoft has announced that starting tomorrow, December 16th, at 8:00 AM PST, Microsoft Defender will begin to quarantine compromised SolarWinds binaries.
"It is important to understand that these binaries represent a significant threat to customer environments. Customers should consider any device with the binary as compromised and should already be investigating devices with this alert. Starting on Wednesday, December 16 at 8:00 AM PST, Microsoft Defender Antivirus will begin blocking the known malicious SolarWinds binaries. This will quarantine the binary even if the process is running." Microsoft announced today.
If service interruption is not possible, Microsoft has created GPO policies that can be used to alter Microsoft Defender's behavior, so that detected compromised SolarWinds binaries are not removed.