patch Tuesday | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

A day after  Apple  and  Google  rolled out urgent security updates, Microsoft has  pushed software fixes  as part of its monthly Patch Tuesday release cycle to plug 66 security holes affecting Windows and other components such as Azure, Office, BitLocker, and Visual Studio, including an  actively exploited zero-day  in its MSHTML Platform that came to light last week.  Of the 66 flaws, three are rated Critical, 62 are rated Important, and one is rated Moderate in severity. This is aside from the  20 vulnerabilities  in the Chromium-based Microsoft Edge browser that the company addressed since the start of the month. The most important of the updates concerns a patch for  CVE-2021-40444  (CVSS score: 8.8), an actively exploited remote code execution vulnerability in MSHTML that leverages malware-laced Microsoft Office documents, with EXPMON researchers noting "the exploit uses logical flaws so the exploitation is perfe...

Microsoft on Tuesday rolled out  security updates  to address a total of 44 security issues affecting its software products and services, one of which it says is an actively exploited zero-day in the wild. The update, which is the smallest release since December 2019, squashes seven Critical and 37 Important bugs in Windows, .NET Core & Visual Studio, Azure, Microsoft Graphics Component, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Scripting Engine, Microsoft Windows Codecs Library, Remote Desktop Client, among others. This is in addition to  seven security flaws  it patched in the Microsoft Edge browser on August 5. Chief among the patched issues is  CVE-2021-36948  (CVSS score: 7.8), an elevation of privilege flaw affecting Windows Update Medic Service — a service that enables remediation and protection of Windows Update components — which could be abused to run malicious programs with escalated permissions. Microsoft's Threat Intelligence Center has been credite...

Are you using the cloud or thinking about transitioning? Undoubtedly, multi-cloud and hybrid environments offer numerous benefits for organizations. However, the cloud's flexibility, scalability, and efficiency come with significant risk — an expanded attack surface. The decentralization that comes with utilizing multi-cloud environments can also lead to limited visibility into user activity and poor access management.  Privileged accounts with access to your critical systems and sensitive data are among the most vulnerable elements in cloud setups. When mismanaged, these accounts open the doors to unauthorized access, potential malicious activity, and data breaches. That's why strong privileged access management (PAM) is indispensable. PAM plays an essential role in addressing the security challenges of complex infrastructures by enforcing strict access controls and managing the life cycle of privileged accounts. By employing PAM in hybrid and cloud environments, you're not...

Microsoft rolled out  Patch Tuesday updates  for the month of July with fixes for a total of 117 security vulnerabilities, including nine zero-day flaws, of which four are said to be under active attacks in the wild, potentially enabling an adversary to take control of affected systems.  Of the 117 issues, 13 are rated Critical, 103 are rated Important, and one is rated as Moderate in severity, with six of these bugs publicly known at the time of release.  The updates span across several of Microsoft's products, including Windows, Bing, Dynamics, Exchange Server, Office, Scripting Engine, Windows DNS, and Visual Studio Code. July also marks a dramatic jump in the volume of vulnerabilities, surpassing the number Microsoft collectively addressed as part of its updates in  May  (55) and  June  (50). Chief among the security flaws actively exploited are as follows — CVE-2021-34527  (CVSS score: 8.8) - Windows Print Spooler Remote Code Exec...

Microsoft on Tuesday released another round of  security updates  for Windows operating system and other supported software, squashing 50 vulnerabilities, including six zero-days that are said to be under active attack. The flaws were identified and resolved in Microsoft Windows, .NET Core and Visual Studio, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based and EdgeHTML), SharePoint Server, Hyper-V, Visual Studio Code - Kubernetes Tools, Windows HTML Platform, and Windows Remote Desktop. Of these 50 bugs, five are rated Critical, and 45 are rated Important in severity, with three of the issues publicly known at the time of release. The vulnerabilities that being actively exploited are listed below - CVE-2021-33742  (CVSS score: 7.5) - Windows MSHTML Platform Remote Code Execution Vulnerability CVE-2021-33739  (CVSS score: 8.4) - Microsoft DWM Core Library Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability CVE-2021-31199  (CVSS score: 5.2) - Microsoft Enhanced Cryptogra...

Adobe has released  Patch Tuesday updates  for the month of May with fixes for multiple vulnerabilities spanning 12 different products, including a zero-day flaw affecting Adobe Reader that's actively exploited in the wild. The list of updated applications includes Adobe Experience Manager , Adobe InDesign , Adobe Illustrator , Adobe InCopy , Adobe Genuine Service , Adobe Acrobat and Reader, Magento , Adobe Creative Cloud Desktop Application, Adobe Media Encoder , Adobe After Effects , Adobe Medium, and Adobe Animate. In a security bulletin, the company  acknowledged  it received reports that the flaw "has been exploited in the wild in limited attacks targeting Adobe Reader users on Windows." Tracked as CVE-2021-28550, the zero-day concerns an arbitrary code execution flaw that could allow adversaries to execute virtually any command on target systems. While the targeted attacks took aim at Windows users of Adobe Reader, the issue affects both Windows and macO...

In its April slate of patches, Microsoft rolled out fixes for a total of  114 security flaws , including an actively exploited zero-day and four remote code execution bugs in Exchange Server. Of the  114 flaws , 19 are rated as Critical, 88 are rated Important, and one is rated Moderate in severity. Chief among them is  CVE-2021-28310 , a privilege escalation vulnerability in Win32k that's said to be under active exploitation, allowing attackers to elevate privileges by running malicious code on a target system.  Cybersecurity firm Kaspersky, which discovered and reported the flaw to Microsoft in February, linked the zero-day exploit to a threat actor named Bitter APT, which was found exploiting a similar flaw ( CVE-2021-1732 ) in attacks late last year. "It is an escalation of privilege (EoP) exploit that is likely used together with other browser exploits to escape sandboxes or get system privileges for further access," Kaspersky researcher Boris Larin  ...

Microsoft plugged as many as  89 security flaws  as part of its monthly Patch Tuesday updates released today, including fixes for an actively exploited zero-day in Internet Explorer that could permit an attacker to run arbitrary code on target machines. Of these flaws, 14 are listed as Critical, and 75 are listed as Important in severity, out of which two of the bugs are described as publicly known, while five others have been reported as under active attack at the time of release. Among those five security issues are a clutch of vulnerabilities known as  ProxyLogon  (CVE-2021-26855, CVE-2021-26857, CVE-2021-26858, and CVE-2021-27065) that allows adversaries to break into Microsoft Exchange Servers in target environments and subsequently allow the installation of unauthorized web-based backdoors to facilitate long-term access. But in the wake of Exchange servers coming under  indiscriminate assault  toward the end of February by multiple threat groups ...

Microsoft on Tuesday  issued fixes for 56 flaws , including a critical vulnerability that's known to be actively exploited in the wild. In all, 11 are listed as Critical, 43 are listed as Important, and two are listed as Moderate in severity — six of which are previously disclosed vulnerabilities. The updates cover .NET Framework, Azure IoT, Microsoft Dynamics, Microsoft Edge for Android, Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Windows Codecs Library, Skype for Business, Visual Studio, Windows Defender, and other core components such as Kernel, TCP/IP, Print Spooler, and Remote Procedure Call (RPC). A Windows Win32k Privilege Escalation Vulnerability The most critical of the flaws is a Windows Win32k privilege escalation vulnerability (CVE-2021-1732, CVSS score 7.8) that allows attackers with access to a target system to run malicious code with elevated permissions. Microsoft credited JinQuan, MaDongZe, TuXiaoYi, and LiHao of DBAPPSecurity for discovering and re...

More details have emerged about a security feature bypass vulnerability in Windows NT LAN Manager ( NTLM ) that was addressed by Microsoft as part of its monthly  Patch Tuesday updates  earlier this month. The flaw, tracked as  CVE-2021-1678  (CVSS score 4.3), was described as a "remotely exploitable" bug found in a vulnerable component bound to the network stack, although exact details of the issue remained unknown. Now according to researchers from Crowdstrike, the security bug, if left unpatched, could allow a bad actor to achieve remote code execution via an NTLM relay. "This vulnerability allows an attacker to relay NTLM authentication sessions to an attacked machine, and use a printer spooler  MSRPC  interface to remotely execute code on the attacked machine," the researchers  said  in a Friday advisory. NTLM relay attacks are a kind of man-in-the-middle (MitM) attacks that typically permit attackers with access to a network to interce...

For the first patch Tuesday of 2021, Microsoft released  security updates  addressing a total of 83 flaws spanning as many as 11 products and services, including an actively exploited zero-day vulnerability. The latest security patches cover Microsoft Windows, Edge browser, ChakraCore, Office and Microsoft Office Services, and Web Apps, Visual Studio, Microsoft Malware Protection Engine, .NET Core, ASP .NET, and Azure. Of these 83 bugs, 10 are listed as Critical, and 73 are listed as Important in severity. The most severe of the issues is a remote code execution (RCE) flaw in Microsoft Defender ( CVE-2021-1647 ) that could allow attackers to infect targeted systems with arbitrary code. Microsoft Malware Protection Engine (mpengine.dll) provides the scanning, detection, and cleaning capabilities for Microsoft Defender antivirus and antispyware software. The last version of the software affected by the flaw is 1.1.17600.5, before it was addressed in version 1.1.17700.4. Th...

Microsoft formally released fixes for 112 newly discovered security vulnerabilities as part of its  November 2020 Patch Tuesday , including an actively exploited zero-day flaw disclosed by Google's security team last week. The rollout addresses flaws, 17 of which are rated as Critical, 93 are rated as Important, and two are rated Low in severity, once again bringing the patch count over 110 after a drop last month. The security updates encompass a range of software, including Microsoft Windows, Office and Office Services and Web Apps, Internet Explorer, Edge, ChakraCore, Exchange Server, Microsoft Dynamics, Windows Codecs Library, Azure Sphere, Windows Defender, Microsoft Teams, and Visual Studio. Chief among those fixed is  CVE-2020-17087  (CVSS score 7.8), a buffer overflow flaw in Windows Kernel Cryptography Driver ("cng.sys") that was  disclosed on October 30  by the Google Project Zero team as being used in conjunction with a Chrome zero-day to co...

Microsoft on Tuesday issued fixes for 87 newly discovered security vulnerabilities as part of its  October 2020 Patch Tuesday , including two critical remote code execution (RCE) flaws in Windows TCP/IP stack and Microsoft Outlook. The flaws, 11 of which are categorized as Critical, 75 are ranked Important, and one is classified Moderate in severity, affect Windows, Office and Office Services and Web Apps, Visual Studio, Azure Functions, .NET Framework, Microsoft Dynamics, Open Source Software, Exchange Server, and the Windows Codecs Library. Although none of these flaws are listed as being under active attack, six vulnerabilities are listed as publicly known at the time of release. Chief among the most critical bugs patched this month include  CVE-2020-16898  (CVSS score 9.8). According to Microsoft, an attacker would have to send specially crafted ICMPv6 Router Advertisement packets to a remote Windows computer to exploit the RCE flaw in the TCP/IP stack to execute ...

Adobe today released software updates to patch a total of 13 new security vulnerabilities affecting 5 of its widely used applications. Out of these 13 vulnerabilities, four have been rated critical, and nine are important in severity. The affected products that received security patches today include: Adobe Creative Cloud Desktop Application Adobe Media Encoder Adobe Genuine Service Adobe ColdFusion Adobe Download Manager Adobe Creative Cloud Desktop Application versions 5.1 and earlier for Windows operating systems contain four vulnerabilities, one of which is a critical symlink issue (CVE-2020-9682) leading to arbitrary file system write attacks. According to the advisory , the other three important flaws in this Adobe software are privilege escalation issues. Adobe Media Encoder contains two critical arbitrary code execution (CVE-2020-9650 and CVE-2020-9646) and one important information disclosure issues, affecting both Windows and macOS users running Media En...

It's April 2020 Patch Tuesday , and during these challenging times of coronavirus pandemic, this month's patch management process would not go easy for many organizations where most of the resources are working remotely. Microsoft today released the latest batch of software security updates for all supported versions of its Windows operating systems and other products that patch a total of 113 new security vulnerabilities, 17 of which are critical and 96 rated important in severity. Patches for 4 Zero-Days Exploited In the Wild Most importantly, two of the security flaws have been reported as being publicly known at the time of release, and the 3 are being actively exploited in the wild by hackers. One of the publicly disclosed flaws, which was also exploited as zero-day, resides in the Adobe Font Manager Library used by Windows, the existence of which Microsoft revealed last month within an early security warning for its millions of users. Tracked as CVE-2020-10...

A few hours after Adobe today released security updates for five of its widely-distributed software, Microsoft also issued its February 2020 Patch Tuesday edition with patches for a total of 99 new vulnerabilities. According to the advisories, 12 of the total issues patched by the tech giant this month are critical in severity, and the remaining 87 have been listed as important. Five of the bugs are listed as publicly known at the time of release, four of which are important in severity and one critical ( CVE-2020-0674 ) that is also listed as under active attack. Microsoft warned about this zero-day vulnerability in Internet Explorer (IE) browser last month when it released an advisory without releasing a patch for millions of its affected users. As explained previously, this flaw could allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on targeted computers and take full control over them just by convincing victims into opening a maliciously crafted web page on the vulner...

Here comes the second 'Patch Tuesday' of this year. Adobe today released the latest security updates for five of its widely used software that patch a total of 42 newly discovered vulnerabilities, 35 of which are critical in severity. The first four of the total five affected software, all listed below, are vulnerable to at least one critical arbitrary code execution vulnerability that could allow attackers to take full control of vulnerable systems. Adobe Framemaker Adobe Acrobat and Reader Adobe Flash Player Adobe Digital Edition Adobe Experience Manager In brief, Adobe Framemaker for Windows, an advanced document processing software, contains 21 flaws, and all of them are critical buffer error, heap overflow, memory corruption, and out-of-bounds write issues, leading to code execution attacks. Adobe Acrobat and Reader for Windows and macOS also contain 12 similar critical code execution vulnerabilities, along with 3 other important information disclosure ...

Adobe today released software updates to patch a total of 9 new security vulnerabilities in two of its widely used applications, Adobe Experience Manager and Adobe Illustrator. It's the first Patch Tuesday for the year 2020 and one of the lightest patch releases in a long time for Adobe users. Moreover, none of the security vulnerabilities patched this month were either publicly disclosed or found being actively exploited in the wild. 5 of the 9 security vulnerabilities are 'critical' in severity, and all of them affect Adobe Illustrator CC versions 24.0 and earlier, which were reported to the company by Fortinet's FortiGuard Labs researcher Honggang Ren. According to an advisory published by Adobe, all five critical issues in Adobe Illustrator software are memory corruption bugs that could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code on targeted systems in the context of the current user. The rest 4 security vulnerabilities affect Adobe Experience Manager —...

The last Patch Tuesday of 2019 is finally here. Adobe today released updates for four of its widely used software—including Adobe Acrobat and Reader, Photoshop CC, ColdFusion, and Brackets—to patch a total of 25 new security vulnerabilities. Seventeen of these flaws have been rated as critical in severity, with most of them carrying high priority patches, indicating that the vulnerabilities are more likely to be used in real-world attacks, but there are currently no known exploits in the wild. The software update for Adobe Acrobat and Reader for Windows and macOS operating systems addresses a total of 21 security vulnerabilities, 14 of which are critical, and rest are important in severity. Upon successful exploitation, all critical vulnerabilities in Adobe Acrobat and Reader software lead to arbitrary code execution attacks, allowing attackers to take complete control of targeted systems. Adobe Photoshop CC for Windows and macOS contains patches for two critical arbitrary...