Microsoft patches Follina threat in latest Patch Tuesday release TechRadar Skip to main content TechRadar is supported by its audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here's why you can trust us. Microsoft patches Follina threat in latest Patch Tuesday release By Sead Fadilpašić published 15 June 2022 Patch Tuesday June 2022 cumulative update is out now (Image credit: TechRadar) Audio player loading… Microsoft has just pushed its June 2022 cumulative update for Windows, including a patch for the dreaded Follina vulnerability. "Microsoft strongly recommends that customers install the updates to be fully protected from the vulnerability. Customers whose systems are configured to receive automatic updates do not need to take any further action," Microsoft said in its advisory. Discovered by cybersecurity expert Kevin Beaumont, and dubbed "Follina", the flaw leverages a Windows utility called msdt.exe, designed to run different troubleshooter packs on Windows. The researcher found that when the victim downloads a weaponized Word file, they don't even need to run it, previewing it in Windows Explorer is enough for the tool to be abused (it has to be an RTF file, though). (opens in new tab) Share your thoughts on Cybersecurity and get a free copy of the Hacker's Manual 2022 (opens in new tab). Help us find how businesses are preparing for the post-Covid world and the implications of these activities on their cybersecurity plans. Enter your email at the end of this survey (opens in new tab) to get the bookazine, worth $10.99/£10.99. Follina abused in the wild By abusing this utility, the attackers are able to tell the target endpoint (opens in new tab) to call an HTML file, from a remote URL. The attackers have chosen the xmlformats[.]com domain, probably trying to hide behind the similar-looking, albeit legitimate, openxmlformats.org domain used in most Word documents. The HTML file holds plenty of "junk", which obfuscates its true purpose - a script that downloads and executes a payload. Microsoft's fix doesn't prevent Office from loading Windows protocol URI handlers automatically and without user interaction, but it does block PowerShell injection, thus rendering the attack useless.Read more> Watch out for this dangerous new Microsoft Word scam, Office users warned (opens in new tab) > This dangerous Microsoft Office zero-day is now being exploited in the wild (opens in new tab) > Windows Follina zero-day now being abused to infect PCs with Qbot malware (opens in new tab) As soon as it was discovered, researchers started spotting the flaw being abused in the wild. Among its earliest adopters, allegedly, were Chinese state-sponsored threat actors, mounting cyberattacks (opens in new tab) against the international Tibetan community. "TA413 CN APT spotted ITW exploiting the Follina 0Day using URLs to deliver Zip Archives which contain Word Documents that use the technique," cybersecurity researchers from Proofpoint said two weeks ago. The same company also found Follina being abused by another threat actor, TA570, to distribute Qbot, while NCC Group found it being further abused by Black Basta, which is a known ransomware group. Via: BleepingComputer (opens in new tab) Sead Fadilpašić Sead is a seasoned freelance journalist based in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. He writes about IT (cloud, IoT, 5G, VPN) and cybersecurity (ransomware, data breaches, laws and regulations). In his career, spanning more than a decade, he's written for numerous media outlets, including Al Jazeera Balkans. He's also held several modules on content writing for Represent Communications. See more Computing news Are you a pro? Subscribe to our newsletter Sign up to theTechRadar Pro newsletter to get all the top news, opinion, features and guidance your business needs to succeed! Thank you for signing up to TechRadar. You will receive a verification email shortly. There was a problem. Please refresh the page and try again. MOST POPULARMOST SHARED1RTX 4090 too expensive? Nvidia resurrects another old favorite2Blizzard made me explain Overwatch 2 smurfing to my mum for nothing3Apple October launches: the new devices we might see this month4Google's AI editing tricks are making Photoshop irrelevant for most people5Nvidia RTX 4090 Ti reportedly canned due to sky-high power consumption1Best laptops for designers and coders 2The iPhone 14 Pro is made of the wrong stuff; the Pixel 7 proves that to me3Stop saying Mario doesn't have an accent in The Super Mario Bros. Movie4iPhone 15 tipped to come with an upgraded 5G chip5Google Pixel Tablet is what Apple should've done ages ago Technology Magazines (opens in new tab)● (opens in new tab)The best tech tutorials and in-depth reviewsFrom$12.99 (opens in new tab)View (opens in new tab)