3 min
Microsoft
Patch Tuesday, May 2014 - Lots going on
There is a lot going on in the updates from Microsoft this month, including some
very interesting and long time coming changes. Also, it's the highest volume of
advisories so far this year, with eight dropping on us, two of which are
labelled as critical.
How to describe the patching priority is going to be very subjective. Microsoft
has identified three of these advisories: MS14-024, MS14-025, & MS14-029, the IE
patch as priority 1 patching concerns. Interestingly MS14-029 which is the
update
3 min
Microsoft
It's the end of XP as we know it, April Patch Tuesday 2014, and, oh yeah... heartbleed.
So this is it, the last hurrah for the once beloved XP, the last kick at the can
for patching up the old boat. Sure, by today's standards it's a leaky,
indefensible, liability, but… hey, do you even remember Windows 98? Or (*gasp*)
ME? At least we can all finally put IE 6 to rest, once and for all, the final
excuse for corporate life-support has been pulled… except for legacy apps built
so poorly that they depend on IE 6 and are “too costly” to replace.
As everyone should know by now, ther
1 min
Microsoft
Patch Tuesday - March 2014
Microsoft's March Patch Tuesday again came in on the lighter side of some
months. This continues the 2014 trend of smaller Patch Tuesdays. We only see 2
issues that are critical/remote code execution, one of which is the usual IE
(MS14-012), the other is an an issue in the DirectShow libraries (MS14-013)
which affects most versions of Windows from XP up to 8.1/2012r2. These two are
where we should focus our patching efforts.
Of the 18 CVEs addressed in MS14-012, one is known to be in limit
3 min
Microsoft
Patch Tuesday - February 2014, also, say "buh-bye" to MD5
This was a fairly novel Patch Tuesday (calling it interesting might be too
strong a word for Patch Tuesday, unless you work in vulnerability management and
geek out on these things - in which case, I thought it was interesting).
At first take, it looked like Microsoft would continue the 2014 trend of keeping
patch Tuesday relatively light. There were only 5 advisories this month, two
critical, three important. Emphasis is on the past tense.
Monday morning, Microsoft updated the advance no
2 min
Microsoft
December 2013 Patch Tuesday
One more go around the block for 2013 and like the last, late tropical storm of
the season, Microsoft is taking one last swipe and security and IT teams alike.
This Patch Tuesday features a solid 11 advisories affecting 6 different product
types. All supported versions of Windows, Office, Sharepoint, Exchange, Lync
and a mixed bag of developer tools are affected. 5 of the advisories are rated
critical, including one affecting Exchange and one affecting Sharepoint and
Lync, not to mention th
3 min
Microsoft
Patch Tuesday, Sept 2013
September's Patch Tuesday is live! The 14 bulletins predicted were cut to 13,
with the .NET patch landing on the cutting room floor. A patch getting pulled
after the advance notice is up usually indicates that late testing revealed an
undesired interaction with another product or component.
Of the 13 bulletins remaining they are split 7/6 between the MS Office family
and Windows OS patches, if we are counting the Internet Explorer patch as part
of the OS patching, anti-trust lawsuits notwiths
2 min
Microsoft
August Patch Tuesday
Oh noes! Fire! Look out! Run in circles, scream and shout! There's a remotely
exploitable, publicly disclosed, critical remote code execution vulnerability in
Microsoft Exchange (MS13-061)! Prepare for the end of teh interwebs.
But wait, is it really remotely exploitable? Well, not in the sense that user
interaction is not required, it's a parser issue that is only triggered by a
user opening a malicious message in Outlook Web Access (OWA).
Okay, but it's still publicly disclosed right? I mean
2 min
Microsoft
Patch Tuesday - July Edition!
This month's patch Tuesday the polar opposite of last month's ho-hum,
here-we-go-again-with-the-patches exercise. There are 7 advisories and 6 of
those are critical issues allowing remote code execution. Basically everything
in the core Microsoft world is affected by one or more of these, every supported
OS, every version of MS Office, Lync, Silverlight, Visual Studio and .NET. It's
going to be a busy time for security teams everywhere.
For the first time ever Microsoft is addressing a singl
2 min
Microsoft
Patch Tuesday - April 2013 Edition!
The April 2013 MS Tuesday advisories are is out and it forecasts an interesting
patching session for Microsoft administrators. There are 9 advisories, for 14
CVEs, affecting 16 distinct platforms in 5 categories of Microsoft products,
including the not-often-seen patching of “Microsoft Office Web Apps” and
“Microsoft Security Software”.
Once again there is an IE patch (MS13-028) which is rated critical, but this one
differs from last month's incarnation by applying to all supported versions
1 min
Nexpose
How to Check for Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) Services
There are many organizations concerned with the critical Microsoft Security
Bulletin MS12-020
[http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/bulletin/ms12-020] Remote Desktop
Protocol (RDP) vulnerability. Here is a quick way to check if you have Remote
Desktop Protocol running on your system or network. I used NMAP
[http://nmap.org/] to check my home network.
In the highlighted text below you can see that NMAP can check for the RDP
service running. If you can't patch, this is important because at
2 min
Microsoft
Microsoft Patch Tuesday - November 2011
November's Microsoft Patch Tuesday contains four bulletins: one “critical”, two
“importants”, and one “moderate”. The majority of these bulletins relate to
Microsoft's later versions of the OS, implying that the flaws they address were
possibly introduced with Windows Vista. Generally more vulnerabilities are found
in earlier versions of the OS, so this month is unusual.
The critical bulletin – MS11-083 – is a TCP/IP based, specifically UDP,
vulnerability which affects Vista, Windows 7, Server
2 min
Patch Tuesday
October 2011 Patch Tuesday
This month, Microsoft issued eight bulletins, addressing 23 vulnerabilities
across Microsoft Windows, Silverlight, .NET and Forefront product lines. Only
two bulletins were rated 'critical', and the rest were rated 'important'.
In terms of prioritizing patching, when I look at security vulnerabilities,
first I want to understand which ones can have the most widespread impact.
MS11-081is a cumulative update which affects Internet Explorer, so it relates to
both corporate and home users. These v
2 min
Microsoft
Microsoft September 2011 Patch Tuesday
This month, Microsoft issued five bulletins to address 15 vulnerabilities. All
of these bulletins are rated “important”; however, while there are no “critical”
bulletins this month, organizations should not downplay the vulnerabilities
being addressed. It's easy for organizations to gain a false sense of security
during a light patch month and sometimes an attitude of complacency towards
non-critical vulnerabilities is evident.
“Important” vulnerabilities may not give attackers the full roo
1 min
Microsoft
August Patch Tuesday
Yesterday was Microsoft Patch Tuesday, with 13 bulletins issued to address 22
vulnerabilities. Of these, only two are rated “critical”; the first of which –
MS11-057 – is the latest Internet Explorer cumulative patch. Until this one is
patched, we'd recommend limiting your use of Internet Explorer to only visiting
trusted sites and remember that it's never a good idea to click on suspect or
unknown links. If users are still concerned, they may want to consider using one
of the alternate browser
2 min
Patch Tuesday
July Patch Tuesday
Only four bulletins in July's Patch Tuesday, but patching a not insignificant 22
vulnerabilities. Only one of the bulletins is classified “critical”: MS11-053.
This should be taken seriously as it can allow remote command execution to
clients on Windows 7 and Windows Vista. This could affect both consumer and
corporate users.
In addition, wireless vulnerabilities like this one (MS11-053) are always
considered quite sexy because if successfully exploited they allow attackers to
do anything the