Check for Windows 11 updates. Microsoft patched a big vulnerability.

Check for Windows 11 updates. Microsoft patched a big vulnerability.

By Tim Marcin
Publication Date: 2026-02-12 17:19:00

Now would be a good time to ensure your Windows OS is up to date. Microsoft recently patched a serious vulnerability in Windows 11 related to Notepad, its text-editing tool.

The company said it fixed a “remote code execution” vulnerability. As technology website Techradar noted, the vulnerability had to do with Markdown — in which users can employ symbols to format text (e.g., asterisks to create italics) — which could allow bad actors to insert a dangerous link.

“An attacker could trick a user into clicking a malicious link inside a Markdown file opened in Notepad, causing the application to launch unverified protocols that load and execute remote files,” Microsoft wrote in a security bulletin. “The malicious code would execute in the security context of the user who opened the Markdown file, giving the attacker the same permissions as that user.”

Tech…