Microsoft is working to fix Windows 10 bug that could corrupt a hard drive by looking at an icon. According to security researcher Jonas L, the recent issue is a nasty security vulnerability and should be resolved immediately to prevent mass corruption of hard drives. The windows 10 bug is designed in such a way that attackers can hide a specially crafted line inside a ZIP file folder. If you extract the ZIP file or simply look at the relevant folder that contains a malicious shortcut, then the hard drive will corrupt automatically. The entire process is triggered automatically without any user intervention except for the job of opening the ZIP file.
Confirming the development, Will Dormann, Vulnerability analysts at the CERT Coordination Center revealed that there could be more ways to trigger the NFTS corruption. Moreover, the problem is not new and exists for the last three years in Windows 10. Even though another vulnerability has been reported, the issue hasn’t been fixed as of yet, reveals Dormann.
Microsoft is aware of this security vulnerability and will provide an update in the upcoming release. The security vulnerability focuses on social engineering and we encourage customers to practice good computing habits on the web. This includes exercising caution while opening files or accepting file transfers. There are reports that the security vulnerability occurs even if you simply paste the offending string into the address bat in a browser.
A popular tech portal has also tested the security vulnerability in several ways. The security vulnerability prompts Windows 10 users to reboot a PC to repair the corrupted disk records. Moreover, the reboot will ultimately trigger the Windows chkdsk process that should repair the corruption. If your hard drive is affected, then it requires manual intervention to repair the corrupted disk records. The bug doesn’t require administrator rights to trigger or special write permissions.
It is to be noted that a hard drive is one of the core elements of any computer and you need to resolve the bugs immediately to avoid corruption. Furthermore, capturing regular backups is important for the safety of your files. You can easily restore the data in case of any data loss. To prevent the invasion of the security vulnerability, you should open ZIP files only from trusted sources.
