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Update —  After reading this article, if you want to know, what has happened so far in past 4 days and how to protect your computers from WannaCry, read our latest article " WannaCry Ransomware: Everything You Need To Know Immediately . "  In the wake of the largest ransomware attack in the history that had already infected over 114,000 Windows systems worldwide since last 24 hours, Microsoft just took an unusual step to protect its customers with out-of-date computers. Also Read —   Google Researcher Finds Link Between WannaCry Attacks and North Korea . Microsoft has just released an emergency security patch update for all its unsupported version of Windows, including Windows XP, Vista, Windows 8, Server 2003 and 2008 Editions. So, if your organization, for some reason, is still running on Windows XP or Vista, you are strongly advised to download and APPLY PATCH NOW ! WannaCrypt , or also known as WannaCry, is a new ransomware that wreaked havoc across th...

It's Patch Tuesday once again…time for another round of security updates for the Windows operating system and other Microsoft products. This month Windows users and system administrators need to immediately take care of a total of 63 security vulnerabilities, of which 12 are rated critical, 49 important and one moderate and one low in severity. Two of the vulnerabilities patched by the tech giant this month are listed as publicly known at the time of release, and one flaw is reported as being actively exploited in the wild by multiple cybercriminal groups. Zero-Day Vulnerability Being Exploited by Cyber Criminals The zero-day vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2018-8589 , which is being exploited in the wild by multiple advanced persistent threat groups was first spotted and reported by security researchers from Kaspersky Labs. The flaw resides in the Win32k component (win32k.sys), which if exploited successfully, could allow a malicious program to execute arbitrary code...

Romanian cybersecurity company Bitdefender has released a free decryptor to help victims recover data encrypted using the ShrinkLocker ransomware. The decryptor is the result of a comprehensive analysis of ShrinkLocker's inner workings, allowing the researchers to discover a "specific window of opportunity for data recovery immediately after the removal of protectors from BitLocker-encrypted disks." ShrinkLocker was first documented in May 2024 by Kaspersky, which found the malware's use of Microsoft's native BitLocker utility for encrypting files as part of extortion attacks targeting Mexico, Indonesia, and Jordan. It appears to have been adapted from benign ten-year-old code. Bitdefender, which investigated a ShrinkLocker incident targeting an unnamed healthcare company in the Middle East, said the attack likely originated from a machine belonging to a contractor, once again highlighting how threat actors are increasingly abusing trusted relationships to ...

A team of security researchers from Cybellum, an Israeli zero-day prevention firm, has discovered a new Windows vulnerability that could allow hackers to take full control of your computer. Dubbed DoubleAgent , the new injecting code technique works on all versions of Microsoft Windows operating systems, starting from Windows XP to the latest release of Windows 10. What's worse? DoubleAgent exploits a 15-years-old undocumented legitimate feature of Windows called " Application Verifier ," which cannot be patched. Application Verifier is a runtime verification tool that loads DLLs (dynamic link library) into processes for testing purpose, allowing developers quickly detect and fix programming errors in their applications. Unpatchable Microsoft Application Verifier Exploit The vulnerability resides in how this Application Verifier tool handles DLLs. According to the researchers, as part of the process, DLLs are bound to the target processes in a Windows Regist...

If your PC has been infected by WannaCry – the ransomware that wreaked havoc across the world last Friday – you might be lucky to get your locked files back without paying the ransom of $300 to the cyber criminals. Adrien Guinet, a French security researcher from Quarkslab, has discovered a way to retrieve the secret encryption keys used by the WannaCry ransomware for free, which works on Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003 and 2008 operating systems. WannaCry Ransomware Decryption Keys The WannaCry's encryption scheme works by generating a pair of keys on the victim's computer that rely on prime numbers, a "public" key and a "private" key for encrypting and decrypting the system's files respectively. To prevent the victim from accessing the private key and decrypting locked files himself, WannaCry erases the key from the system, leaving no choice for the victims to retrieve the decryption key except paying the ransom to ...

Microsoft has heavily criticized Google and its 90-days security disclosure policy after the firm publicly revealed two zero-day vulnerabilities in Microsoft's Windows 8.1 operating system one after one just days before Microsoft planned to issue a patch to kill the bugs. But, seemingly Google don't give a damn thought. Once again, Google has publicly disclosed a new serious vulnerability in Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 before Microsoft has been able to produce a patch, leaving users of both the operating systems exposed to hackers until next month, when the company plans to deliver a fix. DISCLOSURE OF UNPATCHED BUGS, GOOD OR BAD? Google's tight 90-days disclosure policy seems to be a good move for all software vendors to patch their products before they get exploited by the hackers and cybercriminals. But at the same time, disclosing all critical bugs along with its technical details in the widely used operating system like Windows 7 and 8 doesn't appears to be a righ...

Microsoft has rolled out  Patch Tuesday updates  to address multiple security vulnerabilities in Windows and other software, including one actively exploited flaw that's being abused to deliver Emotet, TrickBot, or Bazaloader malware payloads. The latest monthly release for December fixes a total of 67 flaws, bringing the total number of bugs patched by the company this year to 887, according to the  Zero Day Initiative . Seven of the 67 flaws are rated Critical and 60 are rated as Important in severity, with five of the issues publicly known at the time of release. It's worth noting that this is in addition to the  21 flaws  resolved in the Chromium-based Microsoft Edge browser. The most critical of the lot is  CVE-2021-43890  (CVSS score: 7.1), a Windows AppX installer spoofing vulnerability that Microsoft said could be exploited to achieve arbitrary code execution. The lower severity rating is indicative of the fact that code execution hinges on ...

We all have something to hide, something to protect. But if you are also relying on self-encrypting drives for that, then you should read this news carefully. Security researchers have discovered multiple critical vulnerabilities in some of the popular self-encrypting solid state drives (SSD) that could allow an attacker to decrypt disk encryption and recover protected data without knowing the password for the disk. The researchers—Carlo Meijer and Bernard van Gastel—at Radboud University in the Netherlands reverse engineered the firmware several SSDs that offer hardware full-disk encryption to identify several issues and detailed their findings in a new paper ( PDF ) published Monday. "The analysis uncovers a pattern of critical issues across vendors. For multiple models, it is possible to bypass the encryption entirely, allowing for a complete recovery of the data without any knowledge of passwords or keys," the researchers say. The duo successfully tested their...

Microsoft has revealed that a now-patched security flaw impacting the Windows Common Log File System (CLFS) was exploited as a zero-day in ransomware attacks aimed at a small number of targets. "The targets include organizations in the information technology (IT) and real estate sectors of the United States, the financial sector in Venezuela, a Spanish software company, and the retail sector in Saudi Arabia," the tech giant said . The vulnerability in question is CVE-2025-29824, a privilege escalation bug in CLFS that could be exploited to achieve SYSTEM privileges. It was fixed by Redmond as part of its Patch Tuesday update for April 2025. Microsoft is tracking the activity and the post-compromise exploitation of CVE-2025-29824 under the moniker Storm-2460, with the threat actors also leveraging a malware named PipeMagic to deliver the exploit as well as ransomware payloads. The exact initial access vector used in the attacks is currently not known. However, the threa...

Have you recently purchased a Windows computer? Congratulations! As your new Windows computer has inbuilt disk encryption feature that is turned on by default in order to protect your data in case your device is lost or stolen. Moreover, In case you lost your encryption keys then don't worry, Microsoft has a copy of your Recovery Key. But Wait! If Microsoft already has your Disk Encryption Keys then what's the use of using disk encryption feature? Doesn't Encryption mean Only you can unlock your disk ? Microsoft Probably Holds your Encryption Keys Since the launch of Windows 8.1, Microsoft is offering disk encryption as a built-in feature for Windows laptops, Windows phones and other devices. However, there is a little-known fact, highlighted by The Intercept, that if you have logged into Windows 10 using your Microsoft account, your system had automatically uploaded a copy of your recovery key to Microsoft's servers secretly, and you can't pre...

When it comes to safeguarding your Internet security, installing an antivirus software or running a Secure Linux OS on your system does not mean you are safe enough from all kinds of cyber-threats. Today majority of Internet users are vulnerable to cyber attacks, not because they aren't using any best antivirus software or other security measures, but because they are using weak passwords to secure their online accounts. Passwords are your last lines of defense against online threats. Just look back to some recent data breaches and cyber attacks, including high-profile data breach at OPM ( United States Office of Personnel Management ) and the extra-marital affair site Ashley Madison , that led to the exposure of hundreds of millions of records online. Although you can not control data breaches, it is still important to create strong passwords that can withstand dictionary and brute-force attacks . You see, the longer and more complex your password is, the much harder...