Microsoft has released the February Patch Tuesday, which includes security updates for 73 vulnerabilities discovered in its products. Among these, stand out two zero-days, which are actively exploited by hackers but not publicly known.
This month’s updates address five critical vulnerabilities that could allow operations such as denial of service, remote code execution, disclosure of sensitive information, or privilege escalation. In detail, the February Patch Tuesday corrects sixteen vulnerabilities related to acquiring higher privileges, three security feature bypasses, thirty remote code execution flaws, five information disclosures, nine denial of service, and ten spoofing attacks.
Highlights of the February 2024 Patch Tuesday
The two zero-days resolved this month concern Windows Defender SmartScreen and Internet Shortcut File. In the first case, hackers could bypass Windows security controls to convince users to open malicious files; in the second, the vulnerability allowed the attacker to send specially crafted files to bypass MoTW (Mark of the Web) alerts leading users to click on malicious links. As we have already mentioned in this in-depth analysis, this flaw was actively exploited, while details on the exploitation of the other 0day vulnerability fixed by Microsoft during the latest Patch Tuesday are not known.
As usual, it is advisable to apply all updates released on Tuesday as soon as possible to protect against the most current threats and targeted attacks carried out by cybercriminals. The update can be installed on Windows through the Windows Update service, or manually by downloading the appropriate package for your system on Microsoft Update Catalog.
For Windows 11, Microsoft has released the KB5034765 package, which brings Windows 11 23H2 to build 22631.3155 and Windows 11 22H2 to version 22621.3155. Below is the changelog for both versions:
- New! The Copilot icon in Windows now appears on the right side of the taskbar. Also, the Show desktop display in the far right corner of the taskbar will be turned off by default. To re-enable it, go to Settings > Personalization > Taskbar. You can also right-click on the taskbar and choose Taskbar settings.
- Note Windows 11 devices will get this new feature at different times. Some of these new features are gradually rolled out using controlled feature deployment to consumers.
- This update addresses security issues for the Windows operating system.
- This update resolves an issue affecting Voice Assistant announcements. Natural voices are slow.
- This update resolves an issue affecting explorer.exe. It may stop responding. This occurs when you restart or shut down a PC connected to a controller accessory.
- This update resolves an issue affecting device metadata downloads. Downloads from Windows Metadata and Internet Services (WMIS) over HTTPS are now more secure.
To these highlights are added all the improvements already included in the KB5034204 package released on January 23, 2024, including fixing an issue that prevented the Start Menu search from working and other problems. Microsoft has also stated that they are currently not aware of any known issues related to the latest updates released.
