Microsoft has been perfecting its new operating system Windows 7 during the summer and a week ago it announced that it had gone gold, RTM had been reached. With that behind us we knew that it was just a matter of time before it would end up on the Internet and hackers worldwide would sink their teeth into Microsoft’s latest creation. As it turns out it went quite fast and Lenovo became an involuntary helper.
Lenovo visited Microsoft last weekend and fetched its OEM version of Windows 7 managed to lose the copy along with the so called Master Key. A special product key that can be used to activate Lenovo’s Windows 7 computers.
Chinese hackers quickly took advantage of Lenovo’s mistake and has developed a crack that bypasses Windows genuine Advantage certification and works with other computers than those from Lenovo. The result is a fully functioning and registered copy of Windows 7 RTM Ultimate, long before the operating is launched.
Already before Lenovo leaked there were so called Windows 7 loaders, available at Peer-to-Peer sites, that bypassed security features of the system, but this is the first OEM crack we have heard of. Microsoft has blacklisted the Master Key by now though, but somehow we feel that it is just a matter of time before someone else manages to crack Windows 7.
