Microsoft Corp. at the moment issued software program updates to plug no less than 139 safety holes in numerous flavors of Home windows and different Microsoft merchandise. Redmond says attackers are already exploiting no less than two of the vulnerabilities in energetic assaults towards Home windows customers.
The primary Microsoft zero-day this month is CVE-2024-38080, a bug within the Home windows Hyper-V element that impacts Home windows 11 and Home windows Server 2022 programs. CVE-2024-38080 permits an attacker to extend their account privileges on a Home windows machine. Though Microsoft says this flaw is being exploited, it has supplied scant particulars about its exploitation.
The opposite zero-day is CVE-2024-38112, which is a weak point in MSHTML, the proprietary engine of Microsoft’s Web Explorer net browser. Kevin Breen, senior director of risk analysis at Immersive Labs, mentioned exploitation of CVE-2024-38112 probably requires the usage of an “assault chain” of exploits or programmatic adjustments on the goal host, a la Microsoft’s description: “Profitable exploitation of this vulnerability requires an attacker to take further actions previous to exploitation to arrange the goal surroundings.”
“Regardless of the dearth of particulars given within the preliminary advisory, this vulnerability impacts all hosts from Home windows Server 2008 R2 onwards, together with shoppers,” Breen mentioned. “As a consequence of energetic exploitation within the wild this one ought to be prioritized for patching.”
Satnam Narang, senior employees analysis engineer at Tenable, referred to as particular consideration to CVE-2024-38021, a distant code execution flaw in Microsoft Workplace. Assaults on this weak point would result in the disclosure of NTLM hashes, which might be leveraged as a part of an NTLM relay or “go the hash” assault, which lets an attacker masquerade as a reputable person with out ever having to log in.
“One of many extra profitable assault campaigns from 2023 used CVE-2023-23397, an elevation of privilege bug in Microsoft Outlook that would additionally leak NTLM hashes,” Narang mentioned. “Nonetheless, CVE-2024-38021 is restricted by the truth that the Preview Pane just isn’t an assault vector, which signifies that exploitation wouldn’t happen simply by merely previewing the file.”
The safety agency Morphisec, credited with reporting CVE-2024-38021 to Microsoft, mentioned it respectfully disagrees with Microsoft’s “vital” severity score, arguing the Workplace flaw deserves a extra dire “crucial” score given how straightforward it’s for attackers to take advantage of.
“Their evaluation differentiates between trusted and untrusted senders, noting that whereas the vulnerability is zero-click for trusted senders, it requires one click on person interplay for untrusted senders,” Morphisec’s Michael Gorelik mentioned in a blog post about their discovery. “This reassessment is essential to replicate the true danger and guarantee satisfactory consideration and assets are allotted for mitigation.”
In final month’s Patch Tuesday, Microsoft mounted a flaw in its Home windows WiFi driver that attackers may use to put in malicious software program simply by sending a susceptible Home windows host a specifically crafted information packet over an area community. Jason Kikta at Automox mentioned this month’s CVE-2024-38053 — a safety weak point in Home windows Layer Two Bridge Community — is one other native community “ping-of-death” vulnerability that ought to be a precedence for street warriors to patch.
“This requires shut entry to a goal,” Kikta mentioned. “Whereas that precludes a ransomware actor in Russia, it’s one thing that’s outdoors of most present risk fashions. Such a exploit works in locations like shared workplace environments, accommodations, conference facilities, and anyplace else the place unknown computer systems could be utilizing the identical bodily hyperlink as you.”
Automox additionally highlighted three vulnerabilities in Home windows Distant Desktop a service that allocates Consumer Entry Licenses (CALs) when a consumer connects to a distant desktop host (CVE-2024-38077, CVE-2024-38074, and CVE-2024-38076). All three bugs have been assigned a CVSS rating of 9.8 (out of 10) and point out {that a} malicious packet may set off the vulnerability.
Tyler Reguly at Forta famous that at the moment marks the Finish of Help date for SQL Server 2014, a platform that in accordance with Shodan nonetheless has ~110,000 cases publicly accessible. On high of that, greater than 1 / 4 of all vulnerabilities Microsoft mounted this month are in SQL server.
“Quite a lot of corporations don’t replace shortly, however this may occasionally go away them scrambling to replace these environments to supported variations of MS-SQL,” Reguly mentioned.
It’s a good suggestion for Home windows end-users to remain present with safety updates from Microsoft, which might shortly pile up in any other case. That doesn’t imply it’s a must to set up them on Patch Tuesday. Certainly, ready a day or three earlier than updating is a sane response, provided that generally updates go awry and normally inside a couple of days Microsoft has mounted any points with its patches. It’s additionally sensible to again up your information and/or picture your Home windows drive earlier than making use of new updates.
For a extra detailed breakdown of the person flaws addressed by Microsoft at the moment, try the SANS Internet Storm Center’s list. For these admins liable for sustaining bigger Home windows environments, it usually pays to control Askwoody.com, which regularly factors out when particular Microsoft updates are creating issues for a variety of customers.
As ever, when you expertise any issues making use of any of those updates, contemplate dropping a notice about it within the feedback; likelihood is respectable another person studying right here has skilled the identical subject, and perhaps even has an answer.
