As a zero-day security vulnerability posing significant risk to users is confirmed as under active exploitation—the DHS and Microsoft have urged millions to update now.

Microsoft just closed out its Patch Tuesday updates for 2024 by releasing fixes for 72 security flaws across its software portfolio: 17 rated Critical, 52 rated Important and one rated Moderate, and one that has been actively exploited in the wild.

Yesterday was the last Patch Tuesday of 2024, and with it Microsoft has provided a number of security updates, eliminating 71 security vulnerabilities across various Microsoft apps and services. Microsoft categorizes 16 of these vulnerabilities as “critical” and classifies all but one of the remaining issues as “high risk.

As a zero-day security vulnerability posing significant risk to users is confirmed as under active exploitation—the DHS has urged all organizations to update now.