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  • Is your machine running the latest Malware Protection Engine?

    Posted on April 4, 2018 at 06:21 CDT by • Comment in the Forums

    If you’re running Windows Defender, Microsoft Security Essentials, or one of the Microsoft’s corporate malware protection products, there’s a new version of MMPE that should be headed your way shortly.

    Yesterday, Microsoft posted a warning about a “critical” but in the MMPE scanning engine called CVE-2018-0986: Microsoft Malware Protection Engine Remote Code Execution Vulnerability.

    It’s a nasty security hole. MrBrian posted a warning and some details about it last night. (I’ve rolled the comments from MrBrian’s post into the comments on this post.)

    Günter Born has a description on his Tech and Windows World blog. Catalin Cimpanu has more details in BleepingComputer.

    The important takeaway: The security hole can be triggered when Windows Defender just scans an infected file. You don’t have to do a thing.

    My big question this morning… how to tell if you have the fix or not?

    Windows 10 – click Start > Settings > Update & security. On the left, choose Windows Defender.

    Windows 8.1 – Press the Windows key to bring up the Start screen, type Windows Defender. Click the Windows Defender icon. Click Help > About.

    Windows 7 – in the search box type Windows Defender and click on Defender. Click Help > About.

    Look for the Engine version number. I bet yours is version 1.1.14600.4 — that’s the old, vulnerable version. What you’re looking for is version 1.1.14700.5.

    If you don’t have it yet, there’s nothing you can do. Windows Defender updates go through whether you’ve enabled Windows Update or not — they even go through if you’ve turned off the Windows Update service. In theory, you should be receiving the new version today or tomorrow.

    Windows Patches/Security , , ,
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