- Client Forms – In an effort to make requesting support easier for common tasks (onboarding and offboarding users, for example), we are launching a number of forms that clients can use to request support. Links to the forms are located at the top of our website under Client Forms.
- Google Chrome has been the subject of a number of critical security vulnerabilities over the past few days. Google Chrome typically does a pretty good job of patching itself but a restart of Google Chrome will be required for the updates to be applied. Additional information is available here.
- Windows Recall – Microsoft has recently announced a controversial new feature called Windows Recall . There’s a good article on it over at Ars Technica but the short version is basically that Windows Recall allows users to search back through anything that they’ve done by saving and cataloging data on everything that they’ve done. Privacy advocates are understandably concerned but not surprised.
- Election Year Antics – In the US, this year is an election year and it’s safe to assume that criminals will leverage election related topics in their pretexting for attacks (phishing, vishing, smishing, all of the ishings), so be sure to consider that when planning your security awareness training.
Updates
The June 2024 Patch Tuesday included updates for 51 security vulnerabilities but it also included a response to the negative feedback that it’s received from users confirming that the Windows Recall feature wouldn’t be enabled by default on compatible systems. It’s worth noting that the Windows Recall feature came on the heels of the Copilot+ feature recently added and enabled by default that, like Windows Recall, no one really wanted. Even though the bulk of the discussion this month has focused around the Windows Recall feature, there was at least one critical vulnerability that’s currently being exploited (a zero day) and 18 Remote Code Execution (RCE) vulnerabilities.
Microsoft releases regular updates the second Tuesday of each month, often referred to as ‘Patch Tuesday’. These updates are categorized as Low, Moderate, Important or Critical. Details on the categories are available here. The updates can include any supported Microsoft product from Windows to Office to Internet Explorer and server products like Exchange and SQL Server. If you have one or more of these products installed, especially if the update is listed as Important or Critical, it’s important that the updates are installed.
Additional details on this months Microsoft updates are available from Krebs on Security, the Patch Tuesday Dashboard and Bleeping Computer .
Adobe has published six security bulletins for this month in a number of products including Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Commerce, Adobe ColdFusion and a surprise with Adobe Acrobat for Android. We recommend keeping your Acrobat or Reader software up to date, you should be able to check/install updates by going to the “Help” tab, then “Check for updates”.
Like Microsoft, Adobe now releases updates to their products on the second Tuesday of each month. Adobe will also release ‘out of band’ updates if necessary to address critical vulnerabilities in their products. Adobe products include Adobe Reader (for viewing PDF files), Adobe Flash Player (often used to watch videos, for interactive content like games, etc.), Adobe Shockwave and the Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat, Lightroom, etc
Additional details are available from Adobe Here including links to download the update(s) and instructions for installation.
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Article Submitted by Nathan J. Underwood, CEH