Microsoft at the moment launched updates to repair greater than 100 safety flaws in its Home windows working techniques and different software program. A minimum of 13 of the bugs obtained Microsoft’s most-dire “crucial” score, that means they could possibly be abused by malware or malcontents to achieve distant entry to a Home windows system with little or no assist from customers.
August’s patch batch from Redmond consists of an replace for CVE-2025-53786, a vulnerability that enables an attacker to pivot from a compromised Microsoft Change Server instantly into a company’s cloud setting, doubtlessly gaining management over Change On-line and different related Microsoft Workplace 365 providers. Microsoft first warned about this bug on Aug. 6, saying it impacts Change Server 2016 and Change Server 2019, in addition to its flagship Change Server Subscription Version.
Ben McCarthy, lead cyber safety engineer at Immersive, mentioned a tough search reveals roughly 29,000 Change servers publicly dealing with on the web which can be susceptible to this challenge, with a lot of them more likely to have even older vulnerabilities.
McCarthy mentioned the repair for CVE-2025-53786 requires extra than simply putting in a patch, comparable to following Microsoft’s handbook directions for making a devoted service to supervise and lock down the hybrid connection.
“In impact, this vulnerability turns a big on-premise Change breach right into a full-blown, difficult-to-detect cloud compromise with successfully residing off the land strategies that are at all times more durable to detect for defensive groups,” McCarthy mentioned.
CVE-2025-53779 is a weak point within the Home windows Kerberos authentication system that enables an unauthenticated attacker to achieve area administrator privileges. Microsoft credit the invention of the flaw to Akamai researcher Yuval Gordon, who dubbed it “BadSuccessor” in a Could 2025 weblog publish. The assault exploits a weak point in “delegated Managed Service Account” or dMSA — a characteristic that was launched in Home windows Server 2025.
A number of the crucial flaws addressed this month with the best severity (between 9.0 and 9.9 CVSS scores) embrace a distant code execution bug within the Home windows GDI+ part that handles graphics rendering (CVE-2025-53766) and CVE-2025-50165, one other graphics rendering weak point. One other crucial patch includes CVE-2025-53733, a vulnerability in Microsoft Phrase that may be exploited with out person interplay and triggered by the Preview Pane.
One last crucial bug tackled this month deserves consideration: CVE-2025-53778, a bug in Home windows NTLM, a core perform of how Home windows techniques deal with community authentication. In accordance with Microsoft, the flaw may permit an attacker with low-level community entry and fundamental person privileges to use NTLM and elevate to SYSTEM-level entry — the best stage of privilege in Home windows. Microsoft charges the exploitation of this bug as “extra probably,” though there is no such thing as a proof the vulnerability is being exploited for the time being.
Be happy to holler within the feedback in the event you expertise issues putting in any of those updates. As ever, the SANS Web Storm Heart has its helpful breakdown of the Microsoft patches listed by severity and CVSS rating, and AskWoody.com is preserving a watch out for Home windows patches that will trigger issues for enterprises and finish customers.
GOOD MIGRATIONS
Home windows 10 customers on the market probably have observed by now that Microsoft actually desires you to improve to Home windows 11. The reason being that after the Patch Tuesday on October 14, 2025, Microsoft will cease delivery free safety updates for Home windows 10 computer systems. The difficulty is, many PCs working Home windows 10 don’t meet the {hardware} specs required to put in Home windows 11 (or they do, however simply barely).
If the expertise with Home windows XP is any indicator, many of those older computer systems will wind up in landfills or else might be left working in an unpatched state. But when your Home windows 10 PC doesn’t have the {hardware} chops to run Home windows 11 and also you’d nonetheless prefer to get some use out of it safely, contemplate putting in a newbie-friendly model of Linux, like Linux Mint.
Like most fashionable Linux variations, Mint will run on something with a 64-bit CPU that has at the very least 2GB of reminiscence, though 4GB is really useful. In different phrases, it should run on nearly any pc produced within the final decade.
There are various variations of Linux accessible, however Linux Mint is more likely to be essentially the most intuitive interface for normal Home windows customers, and it’s largely configurable with none fuss on the text-only command-line immediate. Mint and different flavors of Linux include LibreOffice, which is an open supply suite of instruments that features functions much like Microsoft Workplace, and it may well open, edit and save paperwork as Microsoft Workplace information.
In the event you’d desire to offer Linux a take a look at drive earlier than putting in it on a Home windows PC, you’ll be able to at all times simply obtain it to a detachable USB drive. From there, reboot the pc (with the detachable drive plugged in) and choose the choice at startup to run the working system from the exterior USB drive. In the event you don’t see an possibility for that after restarting, attempt restarting once more and hitting the F8 button, which ought to open a listing of bootable drives. Right here’s a reasonably thorough tutorial that walks by precisely how one can do all this.
And if that is your first time making an attempt out Linux, calm down and have enjoyable: The good factor a few “reside” model of Linux (because it’s known as when the working system is run from a detachable drive comparable to a CD or a USB stick) is that none of your adjustments persist after a reboot. Even in the event you by some means handle to interrupt one thing, a restart will return the system again to its unique state.
