Last Updated on 16/01/2022 by Nidhi Khandelwal
You’ve probably heard the one about “keeping your software up to date” unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last two decades. Software updates are likely the single most important thing you can do to stay safe online, and vendors, experts, pundits, and blogs like ours never fail to remind users of this!
Cybercriminals like to employ bogus software upgrades to deceive people since it’s solid advice that’s simple to follow.
For years, fake software upgrades have been used to trick people into downloading malware. A convincingly branded message informing users that their out-of-date software needs to be updated taps on all the excellent security messages users have absorbed, giving them a reason to install it.
Fake Flash upgrades have been a staple of web-based malware campaigns for years. Flash was the ideal patsy: it was notorious for its security flaws, and new versions were published virtually every month. Criminals have been forced to search elsewhere for a believable cover story now that Adobe’s media player has been retired for a year, and where better than the web browser, which is possibly the most regularly updated software of all? Many users recognise that installing regular updates is a common and important part of their everyday use of browsers, which has a nearly frenzied update schedule.
Despite the fact that Edge is based on the same browser as Chrome, utilizes the same V8 JavaScript engine, and is vulnerable to the same attacks, the exploits will only work on out-of-date browsers. Magnitude also requires assaults that operate against fully updated browsers, because browsers are fairly adept at installing updates.
