A new dangerous bug discovered in Microsoft’s free Windows Defender antivirus allows a hacker to attack PCs connected to the Internet, but luckily there’s a solution.
The Microsoft Windows 10 operating system integrates an antivirus within it: it’s Windows Defender and it’s considered more than enough to protect the work and browsing of most users. But it has a problem, a pretty big one at that: a recently discovered bug that could allow a hacker to remotely infect your computer.
It could allow and perhaps already has, because cybersecurity researchers believe that the vulnerability, classified with the code of CVE-2021-1647, has been exploited over the past three months by hackers as part of the massive attack on SolarWinds. Cioè l’attacco, presumibilmente sferrato da hacker legati al Governo russo, che ha portato al clamoroso furto di dati dalla maggior parte dei Dipartimenti dell’Amministrazione Trump. Il mese scorso, poi, Microsoft ha affermato che gli hacker sponsorizzati dalla Russia hanno effettivamente compromesso la sua rete interna e sfruttato altri prodotti Microsoft per condurre ulteriori attacchi. Questo bug in Windows Defender sembrerebbe essere uno di quelli usati dai cybercriminali.
Bug in Windows Defender, di che si tratta
Ad essere “bucato“, per la precisione, è il Microsoft Malware Protection Engine, un componente di Defender che gira in background sui computer con Windows 10 e ha il compito di intercettare in tempo reale se un malware entra in azione.
Le versioni di Microsoft Malware Protection Engine interessate dal bug vanno dalla 1.1.17600.5 alla 1.1.17700.4 e girano in automatico non solo su Windows 10, ma anche su Windows 7 e Windows Server 2004. All PCs with one of these versions of the Microsoft Malware Protection Engine in Defender, on all these operating systems, could be attacked if the computer is connected to the Internet.
Bug in Windows Defender, how to fix it
Microsoft has eliminated this serious vulnerability in Windows Defender by including the appropriate patch within the first “Patch Tuesday” of 2021, released on January 12. Patch Tuesdays are the Windows updates that Microsoft releases on the second Tuesday of each month to fix bugs that popped up in the previous weeks.
Those who don’t have Windows Update set to receive automatic updates, therefore, should hurry up to launch it manually and download the latest available security updates. Also because the Windows Defender one is just one of the 83 bugs, of varying severity, fixed by Microsoft with the first update of the year.