With the end-of-life of Windows 7 and Server 2008, their users will no more receive security patches, the only way to remain protected is to trust in micropatches .

On January 14, 2020, support for Window 7, Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2 will end, this means that users will no longer receive security updates.

In order to address security issued in their operating systems, users can install micropatches provided by third-party researchers.

0Patch platform from ACROS Security announced that it will released micropatches to address security flaws discovered in the Microsoft OSs after their end-on-life.

Micropatches are usually small stub of code that addresses security flaws in software products.

“Once we have a POC and know how the vulnerability was fixed by the people who know the vulnerable code best (i.e., Microsoft developers), we’ll port their fix, functionally speaking, as a series of micropatches to the vulnerable code in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008, and test them against the POC.” reads the post published by 0Patch. “After additional side-effect testing we ‘ll publish the micropatches and have them delivered to users’ online machines within 60 minutes.”

The experts at 0Patch will review Microsoft’s security advisories to determine which flaws could affect Windows versions that reached the EOF. Then they will provide micropatches for most critical ones.

0Patch researchers will provide micropatches for critical and easy exploitable flaws that could be exploited by remote attackers to execute arbitrary code on vulnerable systems.

Of course, the time to release a micropatch depends on the complexity of porting the official patch and the time to get a working proof-of-concept (PoC) code to test the vulnerability.

Micropatches for high-risk flaws will be available to non-paying customers too.

0Patch will provides micro patches for both Windows 7 and Server 2008 for at least one year.

Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – patch management, hacking)