You’ve probably seen the term “zero-day” used in articles talking about malware attacks and security vulnerabilities on computers, phones, and tablets.
So what exactly does that term mean? A zero-day vulnerability a flaw in software that there’s no fix for yet. Between the time a flaw is discovered in a program or operating system and the time the developers come up with a fix for it, the program or system is incredibly vulnerable to hackers.
Just because a vulnerability discovered that doesn’t mean hackers have actually taken advantage of it… yet. But there’s always a possibility.
A zero-day vulnerability is a flaw for which there’s yet to be a security patch.
Now, if you’re running an outdated operating system or program that is no longer supported like Windows 7, all of the security flaws remain zero-day because the developers don’t put out patches.
By the way, a security patch is an update to the program that fixes the security flaw.