Windows Users Beware: Vulnerabilities Arise in Microsoft Office, Defender, and Edge—Experts

Windows users are now being warned of a couple of vulnerabilities that were reported seen in some of the apps of Microsoft in Windows, such as Microsoft Office, Microsoft Defender, as well as its built-in browser Edge.

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Windows Users Beware: Vulnerabilities Arise in Microsoft Apps

The numerous vulnerabilities from Microsoft span to 55 in total, according to the security firm that goes by the name Virsec. Not to mention that six of them are rated as critical, which means that half a dozen of them are highly dangerous.

On top of that, the other 49 vulnerabilities were tagged as important. Thus, most of the security flaws are something that Windows users should take note of.

According to the report by SecurityBrief, the security vulnerabilities were found in Microsoft Windows itself, along with the apps made by the tech giant.

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To be precise, it also includes Visual Studio, Windows Defender, Microsoft Dynamics, Microsoft Edge, and Microsoft Office.

What's more, services like Exchange Server, Azure, Azure RTOS, and Azure Sphere also had some security flaws, which mainly attacks enterprise users, making it larger in scale.

Microsoft Defender Vulnerability: Most Concerning

According to the principal architect of Virsec, Danny Kim, among the numerous security concerns found from the Microsoft apps, the flaw in the Microsoft Defender is the most concerning of them all.

It is worth noting that Microsoft Defender, also known as Windows Security, is meant to be the anti-malware software of Microsoft Windows. However, with the latest security findings, the anti-virus software is home to a very serious flaw.

In addition to that, as per the news story by ITBrief, Microsoft Defender is widely used by Windows users as it "runs on all supported versions of Windows."

That said, the principal architect of Virsec, further said that "this vulnerability significantly increases the potential attack surface for today's organizations due to the popularity of Windows Defender."

However, the security firm, Virsec, went on to note that the vulnerability within the Defender could only be exploited through social engineering and email phishing. So, its users could avoid it by preventing them from falling for these kinds of schemes.

It is worth adding that the said vulnerability via Microsoft Defender could potentially be deployed in multiple machines via Virtual Machines or VM, which has been popular for the enterprise users of Microsoft.

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Written by Teejay Boris

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