Info-Tech

Microsoft serves up three zero-days on March Patch Tuesday

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Published: 09 Mar 2022 11: 30

Microsoft has issued fixes for a total of 71 overall vulnerabilities and exposures (CVEs), among them three zero-day flaws, and three critically rated bugs, in its most up-to-the-minute month-to-month Patch Tuesday tumble.

Not plot to be one of many identified zero-days are being actively exploited despite the truth that clearly all bear been publicly disclosed. They’re, in ascending expose of severity: CVE-2022-24512, a faraway code execution (RCE) vulnerability in .NET and Visible Studio; CVE-2022-24459, an elevation of privilege (EOP) vulnerability in the Windows Fax and Scan carrier; and CVE-2022-21990, an RCE vulnerability in Distant Desktop Client.

While the March release seen a substantial uptick in vulnerability volumes on a month-by-month basis, well-known vulnerabilities continued their downward vogue, seen Automox product technique vice-president Paul Zimski.

“Thankfully for all IT technicians, there’s been a downward vogue in well-known vulnerabilities to accommodate prior to now couple of months. February’s Patch Tuesday used to be gentle with zero well-known vulnerabilities, and this month’s Patch Tuesday is lighter with three well-known vulnerabilities, a 54% carve value from the 12-month rolling practical,” said Zimski.

The three well-known vulnerabilities are CVE-2022-22006, CVE-2022-24501, and CVE-2022-23277, all RCE flaws in HEVC Video Extensions, VP9 Video Extensions, and Substitute Server respectively.

Other noteworthy vulnerabilities this month embrace two diverse bugs in Distant Desktop Client, CVE-2022-23285 and CVE-2022-24503, which Kev Breen of Immersive Labs said mirrored the expansion of the attack surface offered by faraway desktop protocol (RDP) due to the faraway working volumes last high.

“[They] are a ability arena as this an infection vector is time and again frail by ransomware actors. While exploitation is now not trivial, requiring an attacker to keep up bespoke infrastructure, it tranquil presents sufficient of a risk to be a priority,” said Breen.

Breen moreover identified CVE-2022-24508 of being great of elevated consideration. This RCE in Windows SMB v3 might perchance well perchance be exploited as a a part of lateral motion, despite the truth that profitable exploitation requires a proper keep of credentials.

Moreover, he said, three EOP bugs, CVE-2022-23286, CVE-2022-24507 and CVE-2022-23299 might perchance well moreover be frail as “connective tissue” in a multi-stage attack. “Addressing these will pause a doubtlessly exiguous incursion turning into more extreme,” said Breen.

Possess in the room

The elephant – undergo might perchance well perchance be more ultimate – in the room this month is, indubitably, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine, the cyber dimension of which has security teams understandably insecure – even supposing the fast threat to organisations out of doors Ukraine is tranquil plot to be minimal for most.

Zimski at Automox said it used to be understandable tensions were running high, particularly following the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Safety Agency’s (CISA’s) Shields Up alert. “Organisations need to make your mind up back of this overall reprieve in well-known vulnerabilities to decide on stock in their overall posture and seize up on any tech debt from previously overlooked SLAs,” he said.

“It’s well-known that firms be taught about securing their infrastructure thru the lens of action and assess their skill to switch each and each quickly and efficiently with their most up-to-the-minute direction of and technology stacks.”

N-ready head security nerd Lewis Pope added: “Patch Tuesday for March of 2022 arrives at some level of a shifting landscape of geopolitical machinations which bear cyber security defenders on edge. Now might perchance well be a wide time to audit environments to make certain that that you don’t bear unpatched or unsupported appliances or tool tranquil in manufacturing.

“C-suites and diverse decision-makers might perchance well desire a newfound hobby in pushing for cyber security enhancements, consider to now not let this new stress compel cramming months of security and infrastructure enhancements proper into about a days.

“A sound basis of the fundamentals to produce on first– (MFA [multi-factor authentication], an endpoint detection and response resolution on all workstations and servers, and valuable patch administration – can enormously toughen defensive capabilities of environments in a more smartly timed manner.”

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