Microsoft Patch Tuesday | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

Microsoft's July Patch Tuesday offers 11 security bulletins with six rated critical resolving almost 50 security holes in its software. The company has patched a security flaw in the Windows Print Spooler service that affects all supported versions of Windows ever released, which if exploited could allow an attacker to take over a device via a simple mechanism. The "critical" flaw ( CVE-2016-3238 ) actually resides in the way Windows handles printer driver installations as well as the way end users connect to printers. The flaw could allow an attacker to install malware remotely on victim machine that can be used to view, modify or delete data, or create new accounts with full user rights; Microsoft said in MS16-087 bulletin posted Tuesday. Users who are logged in with fewer user rights on the system are less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights, such as some home accounts and server users. Microsoft said the critical flaw could

Microsoft has released 16 security bulletins on Tuesday resolving a total of 44 security holes in its software, including Windows, Office, Exchange Server, Internet Explorer and Edge. Five bulletins have been rated "critical" that could be used to carry out remote code execution and affected: Windows, Internet Explorer (IE), Edge (the new, improved IE), Microsoft Office and Office services; and the remaining 11 are marked important. One of the critical issues, MS16-071 that caused alarm bells to go off for many security experts involves a Use-After-Free bug (CVE-2016-3227), which affects Microsoft Windows Domain Name System (DNS) servers for Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2. The vulnerability resides in the way servers handle requests. Attackers could send a specially crafted request to a DNS server and convinced it to run arbitrary code in the context of the Local System Account, Microsoft's advisory warns. Another critical vulnerability is addressed in MS16-070, which patc

Identities now transcend human boundaries. Within each line of code and every API call lies a non-human identity. These entities act as programmatic access keys, enabling authentication and facilitating interactions among systems and services, which are essential for every API call, database query, or storage account access. As we depend on multi-factor authentication and passwords to safeguard human identities, a pressing question arises: How do we guarantee the security and integrity of these non-human counterparts? How do we authenticate, authorize, and regulate access for entities devoid of life but crucial for the functioning of critical systems? Let's break it down. The challenge Imagine a cloud-native application as a bustling metropolis of tiny neighborhoods known as microservices, all neatly packed into containers. These microservices function akin to diligent worker bees, each diligently performing its designated task, be it processing data, verifying credentials, or

Microsoft has rolled out six security updates this Patch Tuesday , out of which three are considered to be " critical, " while the rest are marked as " important. " Bulletin MS15-106 is considered to be critical for Internet Explorer (IE) and affects absolutely all versions of Windows operating system. The update addresses a flaw in the way IE handles objects in memory. The flaw could be exploited to gain access to an affected system, allowing hackers to gain the same access rights as the logged-in user. A hacker could " take advantage of compromised websites, and websites that accept or host user-provided content or advertisements ," the advisory states. " These websites could contain specially crafted content that could exploit the vulnerabilities. " Therefore, the dependency here is that an IE user must knowingly click on the malicious link, which then be leveraged by an attacker to get the full control over a computer t

With the release of 12 Security Bulletins , Microsoft addresses a total of 56 vulnerabilities in its different products. The bulletins include five critical updates, out of which two address vulnerabilities in all versions of Windows. The September Patch Tuesday update (released on second Tuesday of each month) makes a total of 105 Security Bulletins being released this year; which is more than the previous year with still three months remaining for the current year to end. The reason for the increase in the total number of security bulletins within such less time might be because of Windows 10 release and its installation reaching to a score of 100 million. Starting from MS15-094 to   MS15-105 ( 12 security bulletins ) Microsoft rates the severity of the vulnerabilities and their impact on the affected software. Bulletins MS15-094 and MS15-095 are the cumulative updates, meaning these are product-specific fixes for security related vulnerabilities that are rated

Updated your PCs to Windows 10 ? Now it's time to patch your Windows 10 software. Microsoft has issued its monthly Patch Tuesday by releasing 14 security bulletins , nearly half of it address vulnerabilities in its latest operating system, Windows 10. Four of them are marked critical, affecting Windows, .Net Framework, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Lync, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Silverlight and Edge Browser . Yes, the critical update includes even Edge browser – Microsoft's newest and supposedly super-secure web browser. Windows users are advised to patch their system as soon as possible because the security flaws can be remotely exploited to execute malicious code on vulnerable systems, allowing hackers to install malware and take full control of systems. Most Critical Security Updates: MS15-079 – The critical update fixes a total of 10 privately disclosed flaws in Internet Explorer. Most of these flaws allow a hacker to execute malicious code on v

Microsoft has come up with its most important Patch Tuesday for this year, addressing the recently disclosed critical the FREAK encryption-downgrade attack , and a separate five-year-old vulnerability leveraged by infamous Stuxnet malware to infect Windows operating system. Stuxnet malware , a sophisticated cyber-espionage malware allegedly developed by the US Intelligence and Israeli government together, was specially designed to sabotage the Iranian nuclear facilities a few years ago. First uncovered in 2010, Stuxnet targeted computers by exploiting vulnerabilities in Windows systems. Thankfully, Microsoft has issued a patch to protect its Windows machines that have been left vulnerable to Stuxnet and other similar attacks for the past five years. The fixes are included in MS15-020 which resolves Stuxnet issue. The company has also issued an update that patches the FREAK encryption vulnerability in its SSL/TSL implementation called Secure Channel (Schannel). The fix

Microsoft has heavily criticized Google and its 90-days security disclosure policy after the firm publicly revealed two zero-day vulnerabilities in Microsoft's Windows 8.1 operating system one after one just days before Microsoft planned to issue a patch to kill the bugs. But, seemingly Google don't give a damn thought. Once again, Google has publicly disclosed a new serious vulnerability in Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 before Microsoft has been able to produce a patch, leaving users of both the operating systems exposed to hackers until next month, when the company plans to deliver a fix. DISCLOSURE OF UNPATCHED BUGS, GOOD OR BAD? Google's tight 90-days disclosure policy seems to be a good move for all software vendors to patch their products before they get exploited by the hackers and cybercriminals. But at the same time, disclosing all critical bugs along with its technical details in the widely used operating system like Windows 7 and 8 doesn't appears to be a righ

Microsoft began issuing Patch Tuesday updates publically in advance over ten years ago, but from next every second Tuesday of the Month, if you want to see what security patches Microsoft is going to issue, then you will have to pay for it. UPDATE ALERTS FOR PAID CUSTOMERS ONLY Yes right, Microsoft has decided to ditch its Advanced Notification Service (ANS) and will no longer be releasing a public blog post to preview what is to come on Patch Tuesday. Microsoft is facing fierce criticism by industry experts for its decision to make advanced security bulletin available only to those who pay a premium. Note: Only advance notifications are now paid, but security updates/patches are free. NO MORE "OUT-OF-BAND" PUBLIC SECURITY ALERTS In the post on the Microsoft Security Response Center blog , Chris Betz, senior director at Microsoft's security research arm, said: " more and more customers today are seeking to cut through the clutter and obtain s

Last week Microsoft released its Advance Notification for the month of December 2014 Patch Tuesday Updates, and finally today released a total of seven security bulletins, which will address several vulnerabilities in its products, out of which three are marked 'critical' and rest are 'important' in severity. Last month after a big pile of security patches , the company released an an unusual emergency patch to fix a critical vulnerability in Microsoft Windows Kerberos KBC, authentication system used by default in the operating system, that cybercriminals exploited to compromise whole networks of computers. The three critical bulletins affect Internet Explorer, Office and Windows. All the versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) are affected except Server Core, which does not include IE. The critical zero-day IE vulnerability (CVE-2014-8967) was discovered by security researcher Arthur Gerkis of Zero Day Initiative (ZDI) in June this year. By explo

Microsoft today released an " out-of-band " security updates to fix a critical vulnerability in all supported versions of its Windows Server software that cyber criminals are exploiting to compromise whole networks of computers. The Emergency patch release comes just one week after Microsoft provided its monthly security patch updates. The November 2014 Patch Tuesday updates included 16 security patches, five of which were rated by Redmond as "critical." The security update (MS14-068) addresses a vulnerability in the Windows component called Microsoft Windows Kerberos KBC , authentication system used by default in the operating system. The flaw allows an attacker to elevate domain user account privileges and access rights to that of a domain administrator account. As a result, if users unknowingly or accidentally run a malicious software on their system, it could therefore be used to compromise the entire network, which could be more dangerous for those who

Microsoft has this time quite a big pile of security patches in its November 2014 Patch Tuesday , which will address almost 60 non-security updates for its Windows OS along with 16 security updates . The software giant released Advance Notification for 16 security bulletins, the most in more than three years, which will be addressed as of tomorrow, 11 November, 2014. Five of the bulletins have been marked as " critical ", nine are " importan t" in severity, while two were labeled " moderate ." The updates will patch vulnerabilities in Microsoft's various software including Internet Explorer (IE), Windows, Office, Exchange Server, SharePoint Server and the .NET framework as well. Five critical vulnerabilities affect specific versions of Microsoft Windows, including Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows RT, and Windows Server. One of them also affects Internet Explorer versions 7 through 11 as well. Four of the five critical bugs are said to al

It seems that there is no end to the Windows zero-days, as recently Microsoft patched three zero-day vulnerabilities in Windows which were actively exploited in the wild by hackers, and now a new Zero-day vulnerability has been disclosed affecting all supported releases of Windows operating system, excluding Windows Server 2003. Microsoft has issued a temporary security fix for the flaw and also confirmed that the zero-day flaw is being actively exploited by the hackers through limited, targeted attacks using malicious Microsoft PowerPoint documents sent as email attachments. According to the Microsoft Security Advisory published on Tuesday, the zero-day resides within the operating system's code that handles OLE (object linking and embedding) objects. OLE technology is most commonly used by Microsoft Office for embedding data from, for example, an Excel spreadsheet in a Word document. The vulnerability (designated as CVE-2014-6352 ) is triggered when a user is forced

You all won't have forget about the dodgy update released by Microsoft in its last month's Patch Tuesday Updates which was responsible for crippling users' computers - specially users running Windows 7 PCs with the 64bit version - with the infamous " Blue Screens of Death ." The company fixed the issue at the end of last month, and now is planning to release a light edition of Patches. Today Microsoft has released its Advance Notification for the month of September Patch Tuesday Updates. There will be a total of four security Bulletins next Tuesday, September 9, which will address several vulnerabilities in its products, one of them is marked critical and rest are important in severity. CRITICAL PATCH This time also administrators can expect a cumulative patch release for Internet Explorer which will address a number of remote code execution vulnerabilities in the browser. As usual, Internet Explorer (IE) update is rated Critical on Windows client systems and Moder

Microsoft on Friday quietly urged its users to uninstall the most recent round of security updates, after reports emerged that it crippled their computers with the infamous " Blue Screens of Death " (BSoD), which is really a matter of shame for one of the largest technology giants. Microsoft released security updates on its August Patch Tuesday that addressed privilege escalation vulnerabilities but an apparent font cache clearing issue caused Windows boxes to turn the colour of the screen to Blue. The tech giant forced to make this decision after hundreds of complaints, regarding the infamous Blue Screen of Death error, were sent to the company. This was not the only update to be made last week. The offending Microsoft patch identified as MS 14-045 , one of the nine updates which fixes three security issues including one in the Windows kernel - the heart of the operating system - can cause system crashes forcing users to reboot it. Soon after the initial release o

Today Microsoft has released its Advance Notification for the month of August 2014 Patch Tuesday Updates releasing a total of nine security Bulletins, which will address several vulnerabilities in its products, out of which two are marked critical and rest are important in severity. The latest updates, which is set to arrive on August 12, will address two critical bugs affect Internet Explorer and Windows with seven other issues rated as important. The vulnerabilities in the company's products range from remote code execution to protection bypasses. Both of the critical fixes will address remote-code execution flaws. The critical Windows update affects only business and professional editions of Windows 7 and Windows 8. Whereas, the Internet Explorer update affects all versions of Windows on all supported platforms. The remaining seven updates affect its various products, including Windows, Office, SQL Server, the .NET Framework and SharePoint Server 2013. There wi

Beginning of the new month, Get Ready for Microsoft Patch Tuesday! Microsoft has released its Advance Notification for the month of July 2014 Patch Tuesday releasing six security Bulletins, which will address a total of six vulnerabilities in its products, out of which two are marked critical, one is rated moderate and rest are important in severity. All six vulnerabilities are important for you to patch, as the flaws are affecting various Microsoft software, including Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Server Software and Internet Explorer, with the critical ones targeting Internet Explorer and Windows. Microsoft is also providing an update for the " Microsoft Service Bus for Windows Server " which is rated moderate for a Denial of Service (DoS) flaw. " At first glance it looks like Microsoft may be taking it easy on us this month, which would be nice since we will be coming off a long holiday weekend here in the U.S."  Chris Goettl from IT Security firm

Today Microsoft has released its Advance Notification for the month of June 2014 Patch Tuesday releasing seven security Bulletins, which will address several vulnerabilities in its products, out of which two are marked critical and rest are important in severity. This Tuesday, Microsoft will issue Security Updates to address seven major vulnerabilities and all those are important for you to patch, as the flaws are affecting various Microsoft software, including Microsoft Word, Microsoft Office and Internet Explorer. CRITICAL VULNERABILITY THAT YOU MUST PATCH Bulletin one is considered to be the most critical one, which will address a the zero-day Remote Code Execution vulnerability, affecting all versions of Internet Explorer, including IE11 in Windows 8.1.  All server versions of Windows are affected by this vulnerability, but at low level of severity because by default, Internet Explorer runs in Enhanced Security Configuration and just because Server Core version

Microsoft has released its advance notification for the month of May 2014 patch Tuesday security updates, that will patch a total of eight flaws issued next Tuesday , May 13. Among the eight vulnerabilities two of them are rated critical, rest all are rated important in severity. Just a week before, Microsoft provided an 'out-of-band security update' for all versions of Internet Explorer (IE) that were affected by the zero-day vulnerability , and since IE6 for Windows XP retired last month, even though it received patches for IE6 zero-day flaw. But, Microsoft has no plan to make any such accommodations this time. 13th MAY 2014 - MICROSOFT PATCH TUESDAY  Next week the security updates will include fixes for vulnerabilities including the critical one in Internet Explorer (IE), along with .NET Framework, Windows, Office and SharePoint for all versions of Windows except Windows XP.  " Our existing policy remains in place, and as such, Microsoft no longer supports