Microsoft's Secret GDID Device Tracking System Exposed in FBI Hacker Case, Affecting 1.6 Billion PCs

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According to U.S. court documents revealed in the prosecution of 19-year-old Peter Stokes, Microsoft operates a long-standing device tracking system called Global Device Identifier (GDID) that affects approximately 1.6 billion Windows PCs worldwide. Stokes, arrested in April at Helsinki's airport and extradited to Chicago in June, was indicted for his role in hacker group Scattered Spider, which conducted over 100 network intrusions. The FBI traced Stokes across multiple countries by obtaining his device's GDID from Microsoft, linking the same device identifier to ngrok account registration and subsequent attacks on a luxury jewelry retailer in May 2025. The same GDID appeared in IP records from Tallinn, New York, and Thailand, corroborating Stokes' travel and social media activity. This marks the first public disclosure of GDID's role in law enforcement investigation and raises privacy concerns, as Microsoft has provided minimal public documentation of this tracking mechanism despite its widespread deployment.
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