ISSUE 23.43.1 • 2026-10-27 By Susan Bradley Ladies and gentlemen, it’s time to install. This month I’m seeing side effects, but ones that predominantly impact business patchers, not consumers. Accordingly, I’ve lowered the MS-DEFCON level to 4. Install updates at this time. I’d lower the MS-DEFCON to a rare level 5, were it not for […]

ISSUE 23.41 • 2026-10-12 WINDOWS 11 By Martin Brinkmann Microsoft is phasing out VBScript, with the next major compatibility hit arriving around 2026–27. Here is what actually breaks, why VBA survives, and how to properly audit your systems before the lights go out. For roughly three decades, VBScript has been the duct tape holding together […]

COMMENTARY By Amy Babinchak I am a known person in the Great Lakes sailing community, at least in some circles. Recently, I was asked to identify a fish from a photograph taken in northern Lake Michigan. This seemed a reasonable assignment, but I didn’t recognize the fish. I can identify a lot of Great Lakes […]

ISSUE 23.40 • 2026-10-05 MICROSOFT 365 By Peter Deegan Copilot benefits are now available for all, ranging from a few for free Microsoft accounts and those sharing a Microsoft 365 plan, and more for owners of a Microsoft 365 plan and business plans with Copilot. The rollout of AI at Microsoft has been — how […]

ISSUE 23.38.1 • 2026-09-22 By Susan Bradley What. A. Mess. Remember that scene at the end of the second Die Hard movie? You know — the one where terrorists have taken over the air-traffic control system, there’s a swirling winter storm, the circling planes are all running out of fuel, and our hero is just […]

PATCH WATCH By Susan Bradley Do you want large or small bug counts? Microsoft released the September updates with 12 Azure vulnerabilities, 22 developer-tool vulnerabilities, 9 Exchange server vulnerabilities, 111 Office vulnerabilities, 16 SharePoint server vulnerabilities, 10 Skype for business vulnerabilities, 62 SQL vulnerabilities, 9 “other” vulnerabilities, and — last but not least — 723 […]

I’ve updated the master patch list here.  Please note I am not recommending installing updates at this time, we are just testing and reporting. I’ll be updating that page and monitoring for issues. So far the trending issues are: RDS servers having issues after the September updates. If you run an RDS farm, hold back. I […]

ISSUE 23.26 • 2026-06-29 MICROSOFT 365 By Peter Deegan Give AI a chance to help you with any Excel or spreadsheet app. AI can greatly speed up your time spent working on a workbook — rom explaining functions and improving formulas to making a full sheet from your description. Any version of Excel, including perpetual […]

Carrie Roberts //       A malicious macro in a Microsoft Word or Excel document is an effective hacking technique. These documents could be delivered in a variety of […]

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Ethan Robish // In my last two posts I showed how to insert tracking bugs in both .docx (Part 1) and .xlsx files (Part 2).  But don’t let all that effort go […]

The post Bugging Microsoft Files: Part 3 – Clearing Metadata appeared first on Black Hills Information Security, Inc..

Ethan Robish // As promised in my previous post, part 1, this post shows how to place a tracking bug in a native .xlsx file.  Full credit for this method […]

The post Bugging Microsoft Files: Part 2 – Xlsx Files using Microsoft Excel appeared first on Black Hills Information Security, Inc..