Microsoft issued a security advisory yesterday to warn its users. According to the advisory, there are zero-day vulnerabilities in the Windows OS that are already being exploited by hackers to take control of vulnerable systems.
The zero-day vulnerabilities are located in the Adobe Type Manager Library (atmfd.dll), a library that Microsoft uses to render PostScript Type 1 fonts within Windows.
Microsoft says that two Windows zero-day vulnerabilities allow an attacker to perform remote code (RCE) execution on this built-in library. In this way, the attacker can run malicious code on a user 's system and do things that only the user could do.
According to Microsoft, all currently supported versions of the Windows and Windows Server operating systems are vulnerable. Windows 7, which is no longer supported, is also affected.
"There are multiple ways an attacker could exploit the vulnerabilities, such as convincing the user to open a specially crafted document or even simply viewing it in Windows Preview," the company.
However, Microsoft said that the attacks that have been observed exploiting these vulnerabilities are "limited" and "targeted.".
currently patch available security. Microsoft has stated that the issue may be resolved with the release of the next Patch Tuesday (April 2020). Its release is scheduled for April 14.
In the meantime, Microsoft has published a series of measures that companies and home users can take to limit the chances of falling victim to such an attack:
These measures include:
- Disabling the Preview Pane and Details Pane in Windows Explorer
- Disabling the WebClient service
- Renaming ATMFD.DLL
