Microsoft went from door to door to take malware-infected routers offline

Not every type of work can be done remotely. While work-from-home employees may have come to this realization during the recent pandemic, it apparently also applies to multi-billion-dollar corporations like Microsoft. The Redmond-based software company reportedly had to make house calls to fight Trickbot, a cunning piece of malware that originated in Eastern Europe and infected millions of devices around the world.

In 2020, officials even feared that the highly adaptable malware could wreak havoc during the presidential election of the United States. While Trickbot can compromise sensitive data like bank and PayPal accounts, it is also capable of exposing infected systems to other malicious software.

In certain South American countries like Brazil, the situation was particularly desperate due to the usage of outdated and therefore vulnerable networking hardware. These dire circumstances forced Microsoft to abandon its strategy of containing the malware remotely. In collaboration with local telecommunication companies, people were sent from door to door to physically unplug the infected routers and put them out of commission. It was a rather extraordinary course of action that indicates how futile Microsoft's fight against the resilient malware truly was.

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