Like every month, yesterday was the second Tuesday of the month. And that means it was Patch Tuesday. Microsoft has published its new updates for Windows with which to correct all kinds of security flaws and vulnerabilities in all supported versions of its operating system. In total, this July they have corrected 84 security flaws, 4 of which have been listed as critical, and one of which is a zero-day bug being exploited by hackers. Therefore, it is vital that you update your PC as soon as possible.
The windows versions that have received their share of security patches are the following:
- Windows 7 (extended support only): 33 security flaws, 1 of them critical.
- Windows 8.1: 35 security flaws, 2 of them critical.
- Windows 10 (20H2, 21H1 and 21H2): 43 security flaws, 2 of them critical.
- Windows 11: 42 security flaws, 2 of them critical.
In addition to two security flaws that had been previously fixed in Edge, the vulnerabilities fixed in these new patches are divided into the following types:
- 52 of the type «Elevation of Privilege» (which allow you to gain permissions within the system).
- 4 of the type «Security Feature Bypass» (allows you to bypass system security measures).
- 12 of the type «Remote Code Execution» (allow executing code on the PC).
- 11 of the type «Information Disclosure» (allows access to sensitive information)
- 5 of the type «Denial of Service» (causes programs, or the entire system, to crash)
Of all these bugs, the most important is a bug logged as “CVE-2022-22047«. This flaw is of the “Elevation of Privilege” type, and allows attackers to gain SYSTEM permissions, that is, the highest level of privileges, within the system. The seriousness of this error lies in the fact that hackers are using it via Internet. And, therefore, it is vital to protect ourselves as soon as possible.
Update Windows to protect us from failures
If we want to prevent hackers from compromising our computer, it is vital to install new updates as soon as possible. For this, we have several ways to do it. The first, and the most recommended, is to use Windows Update to search for, download and apply the latest patches. To do this, we just have to open the Settings menu, enter «Update and Security»either “Windows Update«, depending on the Windows we use, and look for patches.
If we have any pending updates, from here we can download and install them. And, after a restart, we can have our computer up to date. In case we cannot download them from the Internet, or have problems installing them, we will have to do it by hand. To do this, we will enter the following links and download the patches that correspond to our OS:
This method is very useful, for example, when we have a very slow Internet connection and we want to download the update on another PC to install it manually. Also, since they are cumulative updates (at least in the case of 10 and 11), it is not necessary to download all the previous patches to keep our PC up to date with the latest patches.
