Microsoft Updates Windows Defender to Fry Superfish

If you're a Lenovo laptop owner, then you've probably heard about the Superfish adware the company added to its consumer PCs last fall.

If you purchased a Lenovo PC between September and December, what can you do? We have a step-by-step guide for removing it manually, but Microsoft also just stepped in to make the process a bit easier.

As noted by security researcher Filippo Valsorda, a new update to Windows Defender removes Superfish and the SSL certificates that the adware circumvented in order to operate.

GO MICROSOFT pic.twitter.com/81gs9PkDKx

— Filippo Valsorda (@FiloSottile) February 20, 2015

Windows Defender is Microsoft's anti-spyware software, and is included with Windows. You can't uninstall it, but you can turn it off if you want a more robust antivirus solution.

According to PC World, Microsoft Security Essentials, Redmond's free anti-malware software, will also eradicate Superfish.

According to Valsorda, though, the certificate remains on Firefox. As ZDNet noted, Windows Defender doesn't work with Firefox because Mozilla's browser has its own certificate store.

Lenovo was reportedly going to provide a tool to remove anything Superfish-related from its laptops today, but nothing has been released. (Update: Lenovo released its own tool late Friday night.)

To run Windows Defender, click the Start button, type "Defender" in the search box, and click Windows Defender in the list of results.