Happy Friday my friend!
Have you noticed that your computers and phones have been nagging you more than usual to install updates? No, it's not your imagination. There has been a surge in patches being released, mostly plugging holes to critical and zero-day vulnerabilities.
Why should I care?
A zero-day vulnerability refers to a security flaw that is unknown to the manufacturer (eg. Apple, Microsoft, etc.) and so there is no official patch or fix for it. Zero-day exploits can be especially dangerous because malicious actors find and secretly take advantage of them long before the vulnerability becomes public knowledge.
Zero-days can be found all over the place kind of software, from operating systems to smart bulbs and are valuable to cybercriminals and even nation-state sponsored hackers. Once discovered, it becomes a race between the hackers who try to exploit the flaw and the software developers who work to patch it before it can be widely exploited and gets out of hand.
The Takeaway
The FBI has issued numerous warnings lately about how they are seeing a number of zero days being actively exploited in the wild.
Translation: hackers are taking over devices because they weren't patched by users or IT departments.
I'm not making this up. Here are just a few critical patches released just this week. They are addressing CVE's actively being exploited in the wild:
So in short, patch your devices when they ask to be patched! If you have Total Security, we do this automatically for you. If not, feel free to reach out - we can help.
If you know someone who would find these updates useful, please consider forwarding this email - it might just save them from disaster.
Stay safe out there.
-Attila
New Friday Funnies
Whoever said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results has obviously never had to reboot a computer.
- William Petersen
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