We are in the second week of the month. And, as usual, many companies, like Microsoft, have taken the opportunity to launch their new security patches with which to protect users from all kinds of online threats. We are often used to talking about and downloading security patches for Windows. However, as important as those are also the security patches that the company releases for the rest of its products. And one of those that has received its share of patches has been Office .
Along with security patches for Windows 10, Microsoft has also released new bulletins for its office suite, Office. And all users who have this office suite installed should install them as soon as possible if they don’t want to take risks and end up falling into the clutches of hackers.
Office security patches for January 2021
In total, Microsoft has fixed 26 vulnerabilities in the Office suite and the 7 programs that comprise it. Of those 26, 11 security flaws could allow any attacker to execute remote code or gain privileges in the operating system through documents modified for that purpose. Along with these security patches, Microsoft has also released 5 cumulative patches to fix other non-security related issues.
All security patches have been considered by the company as ” important “, so we will not find “critical” patches as on other occasions. After exploiting any of these vulnerabilities, attackers could have full control over the PC. They could, for example, run malware, view files, delete them, and even take control of the general administrator account.
These Office patches are downloaded completely free of charge through Windows Update and from the Office Download Center itself. If you haven’t made any changes to your Office 2019 or 365 settings, you don’t have to worry. In addition, other security patches have also been released for the older versions of the office suite, including patches for Office 2010.
January 2021: a tough month for Microsoft security
Of course, 2021 is not exactly a good start for Microsoft. Its operating system, Windows 10, has received a good portion of patches to correct all kinds of security flaws (several of them critical) that put users at risk. In addition, your antivirus, Windows Defender , has also received an emergency update that corrects a zero-day bug that was being exploited massively on the Internet.
Finally, indicate that Microsoft has also been left with several things in the pipeline. And one of the most serious, as we have told you a few hours ago, is the failure in the NTFS file system that can corrupt our entire hard drive by executing just one CMD command.
Therefore, we remember that we should not only pay attention to Windows updates. Which is one of the most important turning points, but so are the rest of the PC programs. Everything updated, along with a backup plan and basic security measures and we will reduce the probability of ending up in the hands of hackers.