Microsoft ain't the only one squashing exploited-in-the-wild bugs this month.

They did this using a JScript file with a malformed signature that forced the SmartScreen request to return an error and trigger the default option - thus bypassing MotW and allowing the victim to open the file without triggering the security warning. In the fall, security researchers discovered ransomware campaigns, first Magniber and then Qakbot, exploiting the Windows bug and bypassing Microsoft's MotW. This second security bypass highlights a larger problem, according to the Google team, and it's an issue that researchers have previously pointed out: vendors need to fix the root cause of the security flaw, not just issue a quicker, localized patch. The Google threat hunters have documented more than 100,000 downloads of the malicious MSI files since January 2023, and said over 80 percent of these were downloaded by European users, which is notable because Magniber usually targets victims in South Korea and Taiwan.

Fortinet installer