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Businesses across the world have been hit by widespread disruptions to their Windows workstations stemming from a faulty update pushed out by cybersecurity company CrowdStrike. "CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts," the company's CEO George Kurtz said in a statement . "Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted. This is not a security incident or cyber attack." The company, which acknowledged "reports of [ Blue Screens of Death ] on Windows hosts," further said it has identified the issue and a fix has been deployed for its Falcon Sensor product, urging customers to refer to the support portal for the latest updates. For systems that have been already impacted by the problem, the mitigation instructions are listed below - Boot Windows in Safe Mode or Windows Recovery Environment Navigate to the C:\Windows\System32\drivers\CrowdStrike directory Find the file named ...

Microsoft has addressed a total of  48 security flaws  spanning its software as part of its Patch Tuesday updates for January 2024. Of the 48 bugs, two are rated Critical and 46 are rated Important in severity. There is no evidence that any of the issues are publicly known or under active attack at the time of release, making it the second consecutive Patch Tuesday with no zero-days. The fixes are in addition to  nine security vulnerabilities  that have been resolved in the Chromium-based Edge browser since the release of  December 2023 Patch Tuesday  updates. This also includes a fix for a zero-day ( CVE-2023-7024 , CVSS score: 8.8) that Google said has been actively exploited in the wild. The most critical among the flaws patched this month are as follows - CVE-2024-20674  (CVSS score: 9.0) - Windows Kerberos Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability CVE-2024-20700  (CVSS score: 7.5) - Windows Hyper-V Remote Code Execution Vulnerability "Th...

CrowdStrike is named a Leader in the 2024 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Endpoint Protection Platforms for the fifth consecutive time, positioned highest on Ability to Execute and furthest to the right on Completeness of Vision.

Microsoft has released its Patch Tuesday updates for October 2023, addressing a total of  103 flaws  in its software, two of which have come under active exploitation in the wild. Of the 103 flaws, 13 are rated Critical and 90 are rated Important in severity. This is apart from  18 security vulnerabilities  addressed in its Chromium-based Edge browser since the second Tuesday of September. The two vulnerabilities that have been weaponized as zero-days are as follows - CVE-2023-36563  (CVSS score: 6.5) - An information disclosure vulnerability in Microsoft WordPad that could result in the leak of NTLM hashes CVE-2023-41763  (CVSS score: 5.3) - A privilege escalation vulnerability in Skype for Business that could lead to exposure of sensitive information such as IP addresses or port numbers (or both), enabling threat actors to gain access to internal networks "To exploit this vulnerability, an attacker would first have to log on to the system. An atta...

Microsoft has patched a total of  74 flaws  in its software as part of the company's Patch Tuesday updates for August 2023, down from the voluminous 132 vulnerabilities the company fixed last month. This comprises six Critical, 67 Important, and one Moderate severity vulnerabilities. Released along with the security improvements are two defense-in-depth updates for Microsoft Office ( ADV230003 ) and the Memory Integrity System Readiness Scan Tool ( ADV230004 ). The updates are also in addition to 30 issues addressed by Microsoft in its Chromium-based Edge browser since last month's Patch Tuesday edition and one side-channel flaw impacting certain processor models offered by AMD ( CVE-2023-20569  or  Inception ). ADV230003 concerns an already known security flaw tracked as  CVE-2023-36884 , a remote code execution vulnerability in Office and Windows HTML that has been actively exploited by the Russia-linked RomCom threat actor in attacks targeting Ukraine as...

Microsoft on Tuesday released updates to address a total  of 132 new security flaws  spanning its software, including six zero-day flaws that it said have been actively exploited in the wild. Of the 132 vulnerabilities, nine are rated Critical, 122 are rated Important in severity, and one has been assigned a severity rating of "None." This is in addition to  eight flaws  the tech giant patched in its Chromium-based Edge browser towards the end of last month. The list of issues that have come under active exploitation is as follows - CVE-2023-32046  (CVSS score: 7.8) - Windows MSHTML Platform Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability CVE-2023-32049  (CVSS score: 8.8) - Windows SmartScreen Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability CVE-2023-35311  (CVSS score: 8.8) - Microsoft Outlook Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability CVE-2023-36874  (CVSS score: 7.8) - Windows Error Reporting Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability CVE-2023-36884  (CVS...

Microsoft has rolled out  Patch Tuesday updates  for May 2023 to address 38 security flaws, including two zero-day bugs that it said are being actively exploited in the wild. Trend Micro's Zero Day Initiative (ZDI)  said  the volume is the lowest since August 2021, although it pointed out that "this number is expected to rise in the coming months." Of the 38 vulnerabilities, six are rated Critical and 32 are rated Important in severity. Eight of the flaws have been tagged with "Exploitation More Likely" assessment by Microsoft. This is aside from  18 flaws  – including 11 bugs since the start of May – the Windows maker resolved in its Chromium-based Edge browser following the release of April Patch Tuesday updates. Topping the list is  CVE-2023-29336  (CVSS score: 7.8), a privilege escalation flaw in Win32k that has come under active exploitation. It's not immediately clear how widespread the attacks are. "An attacker who successfully explo...

Microsoft's Patch Tuesday update for March 2023 is rolling out with remediations for a set of  80 security flaws , two of which have come under active exploitation in the wild. Eight of the 80 bugs are rated Critical, 71 are rated Important, and one is rated Moderate in severity. The updates are in  addition to 29 flaws  the tech giant fixed in its Chromium-based Edge browser in recent weeks. The two vulnerabilities that have come under active attack include a Microsoft Outlook privilege escalation flaw ( CVE-2023-23397 , CVSS score: 9.8) and a Windows SmartScreen security feature bypass ( CVE-2023-24880 , CVSS score: 5.1). CVE-2023-23397 is "triggered when an attacker sends a message with an extended MAPI property with a UNC path to an SMB (TCP 445) share on a threat actor-controlled server," Microsoft  said  in a standalone advisory. A threat actor could leverage this flaw by sending a specially crafted email, activating it automatically when it is retrie...

The first Patch Tuesday fixes shipped by Microsoft for 2023 have addressed a total of  98 security flaws , including one bug that the company said is being actively exploited in the wild. 11 of the 98 issues are rated Critical and 87 are rated Important in severity, with one of the vulnerabilities also listed as publicly known at the time of release. Separately, the Windows maker is expected to release updates for its Chromium-based Edge browser.  The vulnerability that's under attack relates to  CVE-2023-21674  (CVSS score: 8.8), a privilege escalation flaw in Windows Advanced Local Procedure Call ( ALPC ) that could be exploited by an attacker to gain SYSTEM permissions. "This vulnerability could lead to a browser sandbox escape," Microsoft noted in an advisory, crediting Avast researchers Jan Vojtěšek, Milánek, and Przemek Gmerek for reporting the bug. While details of the vulnerability are still under wraps, a successful exploit requires an attacker to have ...

Microsoft's latest round of monthly security updates has been released with fixes for  68 vulnerabilities  spanning its software portfolio, including patches for six actively exploited zero-days. 12 of the issues are rated Critical, two are rated High, and 55 are rated Important in severity. This also includes the weaknesses that were closed out by  OpenSSL  the previous week. Also separately  addressed  in Microsoft Edge at the start of the month is an actively exploited flaw in Chromium-based browsers ( CVE-2022-3723 ) that was plugged by Google as part of an out-of-band update late last month. "The big news is that  two older zero-day CVEs  affecting Exchange Server, made public at the end of September, have finally been fixed," Greg Wiseman, product manager at Rapid7, said in a statement shared with The Hacker News. "Customers are advised to update their  Exchange Server systems  immediately, regardless of whether any previousl...