Microsoft Issues ‘Critical’ Windows 10 Update Warning

05/14 Update below. This post was originally published on May 12

Windows 10 users, you have had a lot of ‌‌bad‌‌ ‌‌updates to deal with recently, but Microsoft’s latest warning is for an update you need to install right now.

Picked up by the always-excellent BleepingComputer, Microsoft’s May 2020 Patch Tuesday has landed and it’s a monster with fixes for 111 vulnerabilities. Moreover, Microsoft has classified 91 of these as ‘Important’ and 13 as ‘Critical’. 

05/13 Update: Big news for Windows 10 gamers, as Microsoft has now released a fix for Windows Mixed Reality gaming, which the company broke in a recent insider update of its big Windows 10 v2004 upgrade. WMR is Microsoft’s platform for virtual and augmented reality applications with more than 2,500 games and apps. The release (KB4556803) was an essential fix ahead of the platforms wider roll-out and the company promised a patch in “early May”, which it (just about) still is. Windows 10 v2004 will bring a number of important features for both admins (Cloud install) and end users (virtual desk improvements, Task Manager CPU temperature monitoring, refined Settings UI and a new tablet experience for convertible PCs). After such a rocky spell, this is an update Microsoft needs to get right.

05/14 Update: Microsoft has announced it is taking a big proactive step towards shoring up Windows 10 security. The company has added support for the DNS-over-HTTPS protocol (DoH) in the latest version of the platform delivered to Windows Insiders. DoH delivers greater privacy by effectively hiding the DNS inside regular HTTPS traffic. While Firefox and Chrome have DoH support, the real benefit comes from integrating it at OS level, particularly for system admins. If you want to test DoH, Microsoft has published setup procedures you can follow here.

Of these, in particular, Microsoft states that nine of the critical vulnerabilities (CVE-2020-1023, CVE-2020-1024, CVE-2020-1056, CVE-2020-1059, CVE-2020-1069, CVE-2020-1096, CVE-2020-1102, CVE-2020-1117, CVE-2020-1153) enabled hackers to remotely activate code on your computer to assume full control. This is the ultimate end game for any Windows 10 attack, so it’s vital you install these fixes as soon as possible. 

Needless to say, such a suggestion will send shivers down the spines of many Windows 10 users. The operating system has been notoriously unreliable for some time and deleting user data, breaking Chrome security and losing user profiles are just some of the recent highlights.

On the flip side, Microsoft has promised important upgrade changes are coming to Windows 10, while the company is also reprioritizing plans to bring Windows 10X, an all-new platform, to laptop and desktop PCs. So yes, change is needed but it is coming

original article