Nearly 4 million computers at risk of attack through Microsoft Office vulnerability

July 14, 2023 17:33

The vulnerability (identified as CVE-2023-21716) in Microsoft Office has a near-perfect severity score (9.8/10) and allows remote code execution on the target device.

Taking advantage of the vulnerability, hackers can deploy widespread virus infection campaigns, thereby remotely taking control of devices, collecting and encrypting data, downloading and executing other viruses.

*Illustration of vulnerability in Microsoft Office. Photo: Bkav*

It is known that the vulnerability has a patch since February 2023, but according to Bkav statistics, nearly 4 million Vietnamese computers are still at risk of being attacked by viruses because they have not been patched.

According to Mr. Nguyen Tien Dat, General Director of Bkav's Malware Research Center, these types of vulnerabilities are always attractive to hackers because they exist on popular text files. Meanwhile, for devices that do not have automatic update mode enabled, updating the patch is not simple and not everyone can do it.

Currently, Bkav has released a free tool to help users quickly check whether their computers have vulnerabilities or not, and at the same time, provide instructions for updating the patch. Users do not need to install but can launch it to scan at:Bkav.com.vn/Tool/CVE-2023-21716Scan.

Computers using Bkav Pro do not need to run this tool because it has automatic scanning and warning features.

*Bkav guides to patch the vulnerability according to the instructions. Photo Bkav*

Along with that, Bkav guides to scan and patch the CVE-2023-21716 vulnerability as follows: Step 1 - run the tool, click check; Step 2 - the tool will notify whether the computer has a vulnerability or not. If so, patch the vulnerability in one of two ways.

Method 1, update the patch via Windows Update, by going to Windows Update in Settings, finding and updating the patches. Method 2, manually download the patch, by clicking OK in the tool's scan result notification to open the official patch download page from Microsoft.

Step 3 - Users check the Microsoft Office version information they are using by opening any Office application, for example Word or Excel, selecting Account >> About Word.

Step 4 - on the website that opened in step 2, go to the Security Updates section. Here, select the patch corresponding to the Microsoft Office version available in step 3 and download it.

Step 5: Run the downloaded patch to fix the error.

According to Hanoimoi