Reddit – Dive into anything

I have a particular client who are of Chinese background and still do a lot of business with China, so they have been using WeChat to communicate with external users. I don’t like it, but it is what it is.

What I have done in this case is install the WeChat UWP app from the Microsoft Store to at least limit it’s access because UWP Microsoft Store apps are supposed to be Sandboxed.

What has now happened is that the UWP app has been pulled from the Microsoft Store and the only one in there now is one which requires “Uses all system resources” and then prompts for Admin rights upon install just for good measure.

I tried to outsmart them by using the wechat web app https://web.wechat.com/ and this worked for a while too. But now what happens is that when the user scans the code it then takes them a page which says that they need to install the Desktop app instead.

This has been a blessing because now I have the justification to completely remove it from the computer and have it stay on their personal phones, under the threat of hijacking the entire computer.

I just wanted to give others the heads up of what’s going on.

And also, to call out Microsoft for even allowing such malicious activity to occur in the Windows Store, when the original intent was to have every app Sandboxed except by special permission of having the app verified by them, which obviously they have not done by allowing an app like this to have full permissions and request admin rights to the whole system.