Microsoft on Tuesday patched 26 vulnerabilities in 13 security  bulletins. Eleven bulletins affect Windows and two affect older versions of Microsoft Office.
Although there's plenty of attention to a critical vulnerability in DirectShow, the SMB pathname overflow vulnerability tops Joshua Talbot's list this month. Talbot is a security intelligence manager at Symantec Security Response.
"Server-side vulnerabilities aren't too common anymore, but they're a golden goose for attackers when they are discovered," Talbot said. "With this one, if an attacker can find a vulnerable remote server that has a guest account set up, just like that they've got access to the machine and possibly the entire local network -- all without any user involvement required."
Talbot also called the TCP/IP router advertisement vulnerability a "biggie" because it's a server-side remote code-execution issue. The scary thing, he said, is that it affects everyone running one of the affected systems, whereas the SMB issue only affects users with an SMB server. To make matters worse, by default the Windows firewall doesn't protect against this, he said, and no user interaction is required for exploitation.
The Media Player Bug
Andrew Storm, director of security operations at nCircle, has a different take. He said the most important bug by far for all IT security teams is MS10-0013, a bug in Microsoft Media Player.
"The nature of the exploit lends itself to drive-by attacks that leave unsuspecting victims infected," Storms said. "Since media is what excites people most on the Internet today, an exploit of this bug would make it extremely easy to entice users to watch videos that are actually gateways to malware."
MS10-007 will certainly attract a fair number of malware authors as well, Storms said. That's because any time there is the potential to remotely run a shell on Windows, he explained, attackers perk up and take notice because it has the potential for an unlimited amount of damage.
"Based on the number of SMB bugs fixed in 2009 and the recent disclosure of a bug in SMB affecting Windows 7 and [Server] 2008 -- plus the two bulletins today -- it's a safe bet that Microsoft is making a focused effort to eradicate SMB bugs in its products," Storms said. "A lot of people will be disappointed that the public SMB bug disclosed in mid-November was not patched today. The obvious answer to 'why' is that this bug is not the most important. It makes you wonder, though, what else could be looming on the horizon for SMB." (continued...)
|
Social Media and the Customer Experience