As predicted, some of the leaked Microsoft Office 2010 torrents have already been identified as being infected. Torrents, and also popular file sharing networks like Rapidshare and MegaUpload, are common targets for unscrupulous individuals who want to spread their malware. Obviously with the spotlight on the recent Office 2010 technical preview leaks, these torrents are especially attractive targets.

Anyone who has taken their PC’s life into their hands and has downloaded torrents will know how useful antivirus software is. If you do feel tempted to download the Office torrent, protect yourself.

The Microsoft Office 2010 IT Blog is aware of the leaked preview and is giving warnings against downloading the leaked preview. They give two reasons for caution:

• The technical preview isn’t quite ready for release yet and is likely to be buggy.
• Torrents are notoriously dangerous, with many being infected by viruses.

Interestingly, they make no mention of the legality of downloading such pirate software.

According to the Office Blog post:

As a heads up, because we want to ensure our customers are safe, we have been monitoring various torrents and already detected quite a few that were infected. As a reminder, the Win 7 leak was used as a vector for attack and it’s not surprising to see this being used the same way. So, please be aware that if you download this torrent there is a very good chance you are also getting some unexpected malware with it.

At least one person has downloaded the Office 2010 Technical Preview using a torrent with no issues, however:

Im running both the Windows 7 RC and the Office 2010 Technical Preview on my production machine without any notable issues. The office 2010 TP did an inplace upgrade of Office 2007 successfully.

But is that just some devious hacker messing with your mind…?

Those who are running the Office 2010 technical preview will notice that the loved/hated (delete as appropriate) ribbon has been rolled out to more Office applications, including Outlook 2010.

Tags | megaupload, rapidshare, torrent