![]() When the Shadow Brokers hacking group published leaked NSA tools, it was revealed that Microsoft had already issued patches against some of the attacks in March. In February, Microsoft canceled a regular round of patches because of an unspecified “last-minute issue” that attracted a mountain of questions but few answers. WannaCry was weaponized when hacking tools leaked from the National Security Agency became public in April. Tuesday’s Windows XP patches, which came in addition to the regular round of updates to supported Microsoft software, follow last month’s equally unusual patches issued for Windows XP just one day after WannaCry began to spread. Over 100 million people still used Windows XP as of late 2016, according to research, including millions of users in China. The Pentagon, Army and Navy run “ Windows XP eradication efforts” to kill off software that’s long been declared past its “end of life” date by Microsoft. Released in 2001, Microsoft ended support for XP in 2014, but it remained in wide use, including by organizations like the United States Navy, which paid $9 million for extended support. Despite initial reporting suggesting Windows XP was the key to WannaCry’s success, Kaspersky Lab asserted that most victims of WannaCry were running Windows 7, an operating system that is still officially supported by Microsoft. Security researchers have suggested a nation-state may have been involved, but the truth remains unknown. The WannaCry ransomware outbreak impacted hundreds of thousands of machines around the world. Windows XP and Server 2003 users have to manually download the new patches. These security updates are being made available to all customers, including those using older versions of Windows.” ![]() “To address this risk, today we are providing additional security updates along with our regular Update Tuesday service. “In reviewing the updates for this month, some vulnerabilities were identified that pose elevated risk of cyber attacks by government organizations, sometimes referred to as nation-state actors or other copycat organizations,” Adrienne Hall, a general manager at Microsoft’s security response center, wrote in a blog post. ”Īccording to a company statement, the same treatment is being afforded Windows Server 2003, another unsupported but widely used operating system dangerously vulnerable to attack. Microsoft took the highly unusual step Tuesday of releasing new Windows XP patches because of a “heightened risk” of nation-state activity and “attacks with characteristics similar to WannaCrypt.
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