REDMOND, Wash. Wednesday, August 7, 2024 — Microsoft has alerted its Windows 10 users to a significant security threat, urging them to upgrade to Windows 11 before support for Windows 10 ends on October 14, 2025.
The company warns that 70% of Windows users are at risk due to a 2018 vulnerability in the Microsoft COM for Windows component, which allows for privilege escalation and remote code execution.
The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) recently added this vulnerability, known as CVE-2018-0824, to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog.
The warning follows a Cisco Talos report linking the vulnerability’s exploitation to a Chinese hacking group, APT41, which allegedly targeted a Taiwanese government research center.
In addition to this, a new cyber threat known as SnakeKeyLogger is spreading through malicious downloads, heightening the urgency for Windows users to secure their systems.
