Not so long ago I tried to summarize the most common and known tactics hackers use to breach your device and compromise sensitive info such as passwords, credit card/bank info and of course crypto keys. Well as it turns out, there is an old exploit which was just recently uncovered and fixed in the Windows April update of last Tuesday.

Initially uncovered by Kaspersky, the so called "zero day vulnerability" can do much more damage than just take your device hostage for ransomware as it is described by Windows as "An attacker who successfully exploits this vulnerability could gain system privileges, Microsoft explains, meaning that they could achieve the highest access level available on a Windows OS."

From Kasperky's briefing on the findings: "The zero day vulnerability CVE-2023-28252  was discovered and reported by Kaspersky’s research group. It’s a flaw that allows an attacker to elevate their privileges on the target system, and it’s been used already by a group of cybercriminals in sophisticated attacks involving Nokoyawa ransomware....Among other flaws that were fixed in the update, four are remote code-execution vulnerabilities found in Microsoft Office. Although there are no reports of their active exploitation, these are still highly dangerous as they can allow an attacker to run code on your device if you do as little as open a malicious document."

All in all there were 97 security bugs and 1 "zero day" vulnerability fixed in this recent update. Now the main problem with reports such as this, is that scammers who were initially not aware of the exploit, now get a news briefing that it exists and can "go to work" and take advantage of everyone who has not yet updated their device. "A ransomware gang is already abusing the zero-day vulnerability fixed by Microsoft....According to security researchers, cyber-criminals are already trying to exploit the CVE-2023-28252 bug to spread the Nokoyawa ransomware to organizations belonging to wholesale, energy, manufacturing, and healthcare industries."

So don't allow scammers and hackers a window(s) of opportunity.😉 Stay informed and take all necessary measures to secure your device, especially if you manage crypto accounts and wallets since keys and seed phrases are some of the most desired targets of these kind of hacks. Sure, a centralized exchange mitigates this since they have numerous extra steps such as 2FA and other hoops one has to jump through to ensure it's the real owner who's the one actually logging in and sending out coins, but as we are all aware and saw on plenty occasions, these come with their own risks.