Windows users are being urged to make sure that they have installed Microsoft’s August 2019 update. The latest update includes fixes to vulnerabilities that were recently discovered to make certain Windows versions “wormable.”
Windows Vulnerability
In a blog post on Tuesday, Aug. 13, Microsoft’s director of Incident Response, Simon Pope, announced the release of a set of fixes for Windows. The updates include critical fixes for two vulnerabilities that were recently discovered, which is why users are being urged to make sure that the updates have been installed.
Evidently, the vulnerabilities were recently discovered by Microsoft during the hardening of Remote Desktop Services, and were found to be so-called wormable. This means that malware can exploit the vulnerabilities and spread from one vulnerable computer to another.
While to date there is no evidence that any third-party knew about the vulnerabilities, it is imperative that the fixes be installed as quickly as possible. The downloads can be found in the Microsoft Security Update Guide.
Affected Versions Of Windows
“The affected versions of Windows are Windows 7 SP1, Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, Windows Server 2012, Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012 R2, and all supported versions of Windows 10, including server versions,” Pope states, also noting that Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and Windows Server 2008 are not affected.
While updates are often automatically installed, it would still be wise to make sure that your Windows device is updated with the patch. To check if one’s device is updated, simply open the Windows Start Menu. choose Settings, go to the Update and Security option, then Windows Update. If there is an available update waiting to be installed, then the user must click the “download” button.
However, it is important to know that updates require the device to reboot, so it would be wise to do this when one is not in the middle of doing something important. In this case, it would be wise to back up all important files and just wait until tasks are done before updating.
