Tags: Microsoft

MSN Messenger users being forced to update due to security concerns

Microsoft has stated that they are now going to push the users of MSN Messenger application to upgrade to the latest version.

This is largely due to security concerns in the older versions. A company blog post stated that users are being told to upgrade from 6.2, 7.0 and 7.5 versions of MSN Messenger or Windows Live Messenger 8.0 to Windows Live Messenger 8.1.

The blog entry further stated: “Some of you might feel this inconvenient, but in order to protect you and protect the health of the network, we have chosen to take this step.”

Microsoft further stated in a security bulletin published earlier: “If you do not upgrade to a non-affected version of the MSN Messenger or Windows Live Messenger client, depending on your platform, you will be notified to upgrade on each attempt to sign on. If you do not accept the upgrade, you may not be allowed access to MSN Messenger or Windows Live Messenger service.”

This is not going to make many MSN Messenger customers happy as some of them reported that the application is too slow to older machines.