Microsoft readies emergency patch for Shortcut zero-day flaw

Updated Good news from Microsoft. It has announced that it plans to release an emergency out-of-band update to patch a critical Windows security vulnerability that is being actively exploited by malware.

The so-called Shortcut exploit is being exploited by specially crafted shortcut (.LNK) files that point to malicious code and trick Windows into executing it without user interaction.

Malware exploiting the vulnerability have included Stuxnet, Chymin and Dulkis, Zbot, and – most recently – Sality.

“In the past few days, we’ve seen an increase in attempts to exploit the vulnerability. We firmly believe that releasing the update out of band is the best thing to do to help…

Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.

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Graham Cluley is a veteran of the cybersecurity industry, having worked for a number of security companies since the early 1990s when he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows. Now an independent analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of cybersecurity, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter, Mastodon, Bluesky, or drop him an email.

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