Google found a security flaw in Windows and then reported it to Microsoft. Ten days after that, they made it public and this made Microsoft really angry that Google would do such a thing knowing that this could actually make hackers who didn’t know about the flaw before now suddenly want to try it out to see how much havoc they can wreck. Google says what they did is in line with their policy and so the story goes. Now Microsoft is saying Russian hackers that go by the name Fancy Bear or APT 28 may have started exploiting the flaw Google made public. In a Reuters report, there won’t even be a patch by Microsoft until the 8th of November and this means until then, we can only sit and watch events unfold.
“The software maker said in an advisory on its website there had been a small number of attacks using “spear phishing” emails from a hacking group known Strontium, which is more widely known as “Fancy Bear,” or APT 28. Microsoft did not identify any victims.
Microsoft’s disclosure of the new attacks and the link to Russia came after Washington accused Moscow of launching an unprecedented hacking campaign aimed at disrupting and discrediting the upcoming U.S. election.”
The same group Microsoft says is now exploiting that flaw has been fingered in major leaks across the United States. Both American and British intelligence officials have said Russia is now actively involved in hacking into computers and servers that belong to western organisations in a bid to tilt elections towards a preferred candidate. It used to take the CIA much more resources to effect regime change but now it appears like Russia has chosen to do its own through cyber-attacks. The US has promised a decisive response but the nature of that attack no one knows for now.
So the news here is that Windows is trying to patching this as quickly as possible but while waiting, update Adobe Flash and Chrome on your device because as you may have heard, hackers exploited a separate bug in Adobe Flash to exploit the bug in win32K. Adobe has issued a fix for that so all you have to do is update the software on your device while we wait for a bigger security update from Microsoft.
Paul Balo is the founder of TechBooky and a highly skilled wireless communications professional with a strong background in cloud computing, offering extensive experience in designing, implementing, and managing wireless communication systems.
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