Windows Defender misidentifies key driver, disrupting popular PC monitoring tools

What just happened? PC gamers recently encountered an unexpected issue when their computers triggered Windows Defender alerts due to a kernel-level driver called WinRing0. This software, used by various hardware monitoring applications, was flagged as a potential threat, causing some systems to behave erratically. For instance, fan control applications were affected, leading to fans running at high speeds after the tool was quarantined. However, this was not an actual attack but rather a false alarm caused by Windows Defender detecting WinRing0 in apps like Fan Control, Razer Synapse, SteelSeries Engine, and others. WinRing0 is a kernel-level driver that allows these applications to access hardware components such as fans and LED lights. It has been widely used because it provides developers with a way to interact with hardware that is typically restricted within the Windows operating system. "There are only two freely available Windows drivers I know of that are capable of accessin ... Read full article.