Windows 10 source code leaked to the web

Though the potential for serious exploits maybe limited due to what was included, according to some reports.

Windows 10 source code was leaked earlier in the week.

Amit Angon

Some of Microsoft's Windows 10 source code was leaked earlier in the week, but the potential damage from the breach may be limited, based on various reports.

The Register first noted on Friday that up to 32TB of "official and non-public (Windows 10) installation images" were uploaded to BetaArchive.com. (BetaArchive calls itself "the community for beta collectors" and "one of the webs largest Beta & Abandonware repositories!") The leaked code may date back to March 2017, The Reg said.

The code that was leaked is part of Microsoft's Shared Source Kit, which includes source code for the base Windows 10 hardware drivers, PnP code, USB and Wi-Fi stacks, storage drivers and some ARM-specific OneCore kernel code, according to "people who have seen its contents," The Reg reported.

BetaArchive has taken what its owner called 1.2 TB of Windows 10 code offline since the original report.

"Our review confirms that these files are actually a portion of the source code from the Shared Source Initiative and is used by OEMs and partners," according to a Microsoft statement.

Through its Shared Source Initiative, Microsoft licenses source code for various products to certain "qualified" customers, governments and partners for debugging and reference purposes.

Another report about the leak in The Verge claims that "most of the collection (of files that leaked) has been available for months or even years."

As various sites have reported, the Windows 10 source code leak happened right after two men were arrested in the UK for allegedly trying to hack various Microsoft's systems in order to get at customer data. So far, no one is saying whether these individuals had anything to do with the Windows 10 source leak.

This story originally posted as "Microsoft's Windows 10 Shared Source Kit code leaks" on ZDNet.