
New Windows 7 And Windows Server 2008 Security Updates Confirmed
Windows 7 users get good security update news.
NurPhoto via Getty Images
Security updates are very much in the news at the moment, what with a no-reboot patching feature for Windows 11 and Microsoft's announcement that hotpatching will cost at least $1.50 per core for Windows Server 2025 users. Yet, with hundreds of security vulnerabilities being uncovered that impact Windows users, and cybercriminals evolving to strike at record speed, the matter of keeping on top of security updates has never been more vital. Unless you are a user of a Windows platform that has reached end-of-support status, such as Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2, for example. There simply are no security patches available for these two platforms. Or are there? I have some good news for you if you just can't bear to part ways with your favourite Windows computer.
The secret to the continuing availability of security patches to protect your systems if you are a hardened Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 user has been hinted at in a number of my articles. On March 27, I reported how a zero-day vulnerability impacting everything from Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 to the latest Windows 11 v24H2 and Server 2025 could be mitigated even though Microsoft didn't have any official patch at the time. Back on Dec 7, 2024, I reported how another zero-day, impacting all Windows users, could be fixed using the same method. Those fixes came by way of a micro patching service called 0patch — the same service that can now save you if you want to keep your legacy Windows systems alive and protected.
0patch addresses the vulnerability gap between zero-days being discovered and any official patch being released. It does this by providing what it refers to as micro patches, much like the subscription fee incurring Windows Server 2025 hot patch system. These work by applying the fix in memory without disturbing the process itself and without requiring any reboots.
Posting to X, formerly known as Twitter, on April 29, Mitja Kolsek, the CEO of ACROS Security, the company behind 0patch, said: 'Due to (wow!) growing demand, we've decided to extend support for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 with security patches for another year (Jan/2027). Reminder: our security patches are the only security patches existing for these Windows versions.' Wow, indeed. So, if you are a user of either platform, now is the time to reach out and get those micro patch security updates to protect your systems and your data. You only have one other choice, it would seem, and that's to remain at risk of attack.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
10 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Elon Musk's business empire was built on government help. How badly could Donald Trump hurt him?
Even for Elon Musk, this is — to use the precise technical term — bonkers. Barely one week after leaving the Trump administration with every semblance of amity, the world's richest person is going scorched earth against the leader of the world's richest nation. Insults and threats. Calls for impeachment. Sinister references to Jeffrey Epstein. Somehow, Kanye West is also involved. It's like the messiest online influencer drama you've ever seen, except the parties are two of the most powerful people on Earth. But when it comes down to brass tacks, what exactly does Musk stand to lose in this titanic celebrity divorce? If Trump were to follow through on all his threats, and use every available weapon against Musk's business empire, how badly could it hurt him? The short answer is: pretty badly. In fact, with some admittedly quick and dirty math, we can put a price tag on some of it. Elon Musk's estimated $388bn fortune — already $26.6bn smaller than it was before this frank exchange of thermonuclear warheads — depends on the success of two companies which are both intertwined with the U.S. political system. One is Tesla, which makes electric vehicles; the other is SpaceX, which builds rockets, spacecraft, and satellites. X, formerly Twitter, can be left aside for now; having bought the social network 2022 for $44bn, Musk is still struggling to recoup his investment and has almost certainly lost money overall. Let's start with Space Exploration Technologies Corp., aka SpaceX. Not many people can afford to rent a rocket, so a lot of its business comes from government contracts, and U.S. government contracts most of all. As of writing, according to federal data, the Texas-based company has been paid or promised just under $21bn by Uncle Sam since 2008. The total potential value of all SpaceX's existing contracts, however, is much higher: $89.2bn. If Trump cancelled every contract tomorrow, that would mean a theoretical maximum of $68bn in lost potential income. For context, that's more than four times SpaceX's entire forecasted revenue for 2025, and nearly 15 times its revenue from 2022. Of course, there's no way to know if those maximum payments would ever actually have been made. So we could also get a rough sense of what SpaceX stands to lose by looking at the actual cash it received from federal coffers every year. In 2022 that was $2.8bn; in 2023, $3.1bn; and in 2024, $3.8bn. On the plus side for Musk, the U.S. government is so dependent on SpaceX that some critics have called it a monopoly in the making. SpaceX ferries our astronauts to and from the International Space Station, is heavily involved in Nasa's moon landing program, and manages an increasing share of government satellite communications as well. Still, that does not guarantee safety. Would you really, in all soberness, bet against Donald Trump doing something that hurts the country merely to punish his personal enemies? In fact, as Talking Points Memo editor-in-chief Josh Marshall argues, SpaceX's critical role might actually put it in greater danger, because it leaves the feds with few options except "expropriation or nationalization". Like SpaceX, Tesla has benefited greatly from taxpayer money, mostly in the form of emission trading payments from non-electric carmakers and tax credits or consumers buying electric vehicles. An analysis by The Washington Post put Tesla's total income from emission credits since 2007 at $11.4bn as of this February. Its gain from tax credits, which allow more people to buy its cars at higher prices, has been estimated at $3.4bn. Those emission credit schemes are run by U.S. states, not by the federal government. Nevertheless, Trump and the Republican Party have tried to undermine such schemes by contesting states' ability to set their own emissions rules. The wider impact is difficult to calculate. In contrast to SpaceX, Tesla sells to ordinary people, who tend to have their own opinions independent of government. In reputational terms, splitting noisily with Trump could reverse some of its recent sales losses; on the other hand, it might just make Tesla hated on both sides of politics. The biggest risk may be regulatory. At the time of Trump's second inauguration, Tesla was being investigated by numerous federal agencies including the Justice Department, the National Labor Relations Board, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration — which by itself had six pending probes. During his time at DOGE, Democrats feared Musk could use his power to influence or cancel these cases. But Trump's unabashed willingness to wield state power to punish those who displease him while rewarding loyalists cuts both ways. Live by the chainsaw, die by the chainsaw. How much that costs Tesla would depend on how far Trump is willing to go, and on the outcome of any ensuing court battle. But when U.S. stock exchanges closed on Thursday its share price had crashed by nearly 12 percent, wiping $122bn off its market value. So far we've only addressed Elon Musk's finances. Yet there are other, more personal ways that Trump could hurt him if the former reality TV star truly isn't here to make friends. For example, Trump's old advisor Stephen Bannon — who has previously branded Musk a "parasitic illegal immigrant" — urged the administration to investigate Musk's immigration history, and potentially deport him. Unlike some of the feverish allegations that emanate from the extended Trump-o-sphere, this one actually has some substance. An investigation by The Washington Post last year alleged that Musk had worked illegally in the U.S. while launching his Silicon Valley career in the mid-90s. Musk has denied this, and in any case he has been a U.S. citizen since 2002. Still, legal experts have said his citizenship could technically be revoked if he were proven to have lied to immigration authorities. And while those laws have only rarely been enforced in the past 25 years, some Trump aides and allies have said they want that to change. Nor is that anywhere close to the only alleged skeleton in Musk's closet. What is his relationship with ecstasy, Adderall, ketamine, or magic mushrooms? Has he ever been in regular contact with Vladimir Putin? Did his colleagues at DOGE rigorously follow information security laws when extracting sensitive data from federal systems? What happened to all that data after it was obtained? At least we can probably can rule out plain old assassination by government special forces. Although, to be fair, that is literally something that Trump and his lawyers have argued should be protected by presidential immunity. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data

Business Insider
34 minutes ago
- Business Insider
Big Tech is vibe coding with these winning AI startups
It's getting clearer who the winners will be in key parts of the generative AI race, according to Elad Gil, a top startup investor. "In coding, it seems like it's consolidated into 2 or 3 players," he said recently on my favorite AI podcast, " No Priors." He highlighted Cursor, Codium (now called Qodo), Cognition AI (the startup behind Devin), and Microsoft's GitHub Copilot. A clear sign of progress in the tech industry is when a giant platform decides to use an outside service rather than its own product. Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and others have thousands of engineers who can whip up new tech pretty well. So it's a major signal when these companies decide that, no, their home-grown stuff may not be enough. This is happening with Cursor, an AI coding tool from startup Anysphere. Amazon is working on making this available to its employees, according to a scoop this week from Business Insider's Eugene Kim. Amazon already has its own AI coding assistant, Q, and is developing a more advanced tool codenamed " Kiro." So this is a notable move for a company that had warned employees about using third-party AI tools. Google has its own internal AI coding tools, too. And yet, CEO Sundar Pichai said this week he's been messing around with Cursor and a similar service called Replit, building a custom webpage for himself. Software engineering is evolving from a specialized skill into something that non-technical folks can try. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang likes to say that everyone is a programmer now. Instead of learning complex coding languages, we can create digital things using plain English. Still, some AI coding tools require more expertise than others. Cursor is an IDE, or integrated developer environment, a common setup for pro software engineers. Replit and another coding tool called work in a browser and are considered more user-friendly for novices. Pichai made the distinction this week, saying he uses Cursor, and has "vibe coded with Replit." Vibe coding is a hot new phrase for some of these easier-to-use tools. A good rule of thumb: If you didn't know what IDE stands for, you probably aren't ready for Cursor! Here are more tips.


New York Post
an hour ago
- New York Post
Tesla shares jump 5% after all-out Trump-Musk feud wipes out $150B market value
Tesla shares jumped more than 5% Friday — a day after an all-out feud between CEO Elon Musk and President Trump tanked the stock and wiped out $152 billion in market value. Investors were hopeful for signs that the two might reconcile after Tesla suffered its worst single-day drop in more than four years, though Trump said Friday he has no interest in speaking with his former top ally. 'You mean the man who has lost his mind?' Trump told ABC News when asked about the possibility that the pair would speak on a call. 3 President Trump and Elon Musk speak in the Oval Office before leaving the White House in March. AFP via Getty Images Musk, the world's richest person, lost about $27 billion on Thursday as he taunted Trump, saying he wouldn't have won the election without his help. The president fired back by threatening to kill his companies' government contracts. Despite Thursday financial hit, the Tesla and SpaceX boss remains the richest person in the world with a net worth of $395.8 billion, according to Forbes. Tesla short sellers, meanwhile, reaped $4 billion in profits Thursday in one of their largest single-day gains ever, according to estimates from S3 Partners. So far this year, investors have made $7 billion betting against the carmaker. Tesla is currently the second most shorted stock in the US by total value of the position. 'Musk needs Trump and Trump needs Musk for many reasons and these two becoming friends again will be a huge relief for Tesla shares,' Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives wrote in a note Friday morning. Musk's attacks on Thursday took aim at the Trump-backed spending bill that narrowly passed through the House and awaits Senate approval. The tax package would end EV tax credits worth as much as $7,500 for buyers – threatening to dock Tesla's annual profit by $1.2 billion, JPMorgan analysts said Thursday. 3 Trump and Musk have been in the middle of an all-out feud. AFP via Getty Images It would also impose a new annual $250 fee on EV drivers. Meanwhile, the Senate recently moved to block California's EV sales mandates, which could slice another $2 billion off Tesla's sales, according to JPMorgan. Those measures combined threaten to erase about half of the more than $6 billion in earnings before interest and taxes that Tesla is expected to report this year, analysts led by Ryan Brinkman wrote in a report last month. 3 Musk has been taunting the president on social media. AFP via Getty Images Tesla sales have plummeted in major markets across Europe, allowing Chinese rival BYD to overtake Tesla in some countries. The brand's reputation has also taken a beating as protests broke out across the country – and some Tesla showrooms and vehicles were vandalized or set ablaze – as demonstrators decried Musk's role in slashing government spending, including funds for the Department of Education and US Agency for International Development.