Emergency Patch Coming For Microsoft Windows, Malware Risk At Hand

A vulnerability that was found to affect all versions of Windows, has forced the company to play its hand and release a patch on Monday, August 2nd. The emergency patch will help to address the issues of zero-day vulnerabilities in shortcuts.

According to the Microsoft Malware Protection Center (MMPC), attempts to exploit the vulnerability are on the rise, and the patch couldn’t come at a better time. The most prominent virus to take advantage of the “shortcut hole” was a virus known as Sality.AT.

A post on the MMPC blog stated that, “Although there have been multiple families that have picked up this vector, one in particular caught our attention this week–a family named Sality, and specifically Sality.AT. Sality is a highly virulent strain. It is known to infect other files (making full removal after infection challenging), copy itself to removable media, disable security, and then download other malware. It is also a very large family–one of the most prevalent families this year.”