Not all Windows security updates are created equal, and experts warn that these ones will hack rather than protect your computer.
in attacks. The good news is that Microsoft issues security updates for all users, even those of the now unsupported Windows 10 operating system, if you knowas well as solve them. The even worse news is that hackers have been employing fake Windows security updates as part of aClickFix is a type of social engineering technique that tricks users into running malicious commands on their own machines, typically using fake fixes or I-am-not-a-robot prompts.
These types of attacks have surged over the past year, with both government-sponsored spies and cybercriminal gangs deploying this technique to deliver malware. The irony being that Microsoft itself hasthat ClickFix is the most often used method of gaining initial access, “accounting for 47 percent of attacks” observed in Microsoft Defender notifications. The November 24 report has revealed a new wave of ClickFix attacks, this time using what can only be described as extremely realistic and believable Windows Security Update screens to deploy credential-stealing malware. “A notable discovery during analysis was the campaign's use of steganography to conceal the final malware stages within an image,” Huntress security analysts Ben Folland and Anna Pham, said. “Rather than simply appending malicious data to a file, the malicious code is encoded directly within the pixel data of PNG images, relying on specific colour channels to reconstruct and decrypt the payload in memory.”All Windows users are advised to be on the alert for the latest ClickFix attacks. Mitigation is actually rather simple, and as with all the previous campaigns, it relies on understanding that a genuine Windows security update, just like the fake CAPTCHA screens employed before, will never, ever, require the user to cut and paste commands into the Windows run prompt from a web page. It just doesn’t happen. Stay safe out there, and heed this advice.
Microsoft Windows Windows Security Update Windows Security Alert Windows Security Update Hack Windows Hack Clickfix Clickfix Attack Windows Clickfix Attack Fake Windows Update
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