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MS Security Advisories

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This thread's last reply is from . Advice, software, and links below may be out of date — treat specific steps and download links with caution.

FYI…

URL Update to IE URL Handling Vuln
- http://isc.sans.org/diary.php?storyid=3547
Last Updated: 2007-10-26 02:05:06 UTC - "Earlier this month, Microsoft published KB943521. This article acknowledged that third party software had to validate URLs before passing them to Internet Explorer, as Internet Explorer will not validate them. Today, Microsoft published an update to the advisory, suggesting limited exploitation of this vulnerability.
Microsoft does not appear to plan to fix the issue in Internet Explorer. Instead, it asks vendors releasing tools that pass URLs to Internet Explorer to validate them…

Links:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/…ory/943521.mspx
Revisions:
• October 10, 2007: Advisory published
• October 25, 2007: Advisory updated to reflect increased threat level

http://blogs.technet.com/msrc/archive/2007…ory-943521.aspx "

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FYI…

Microsoft Security Advisory (944653)
Vulnerability in Macrovision SECDRV.SYS Driver on Windows Could Allow Elevation of Privilege
- http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/…ory/944653.mspx
November 5, 2007 - "Microsoft is working with Macrovision, investigating new public reports of a vulnerability in the Macrovision secdrv.sys driver on supported editions of Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP. This vulnerability does not affect Windows Vista. We are aware of limited attacks that try to use the reported vulnerability. Microsoft is actively monitoring this situation to keep customers informed and to provide customer guidance as necessary. Upon completion of this investigation, Microsoft will take the appropriate action to help protect our customers. This will include providing a security update through our monthly release process…"

> http://www.macrovision.com/promolanding/7352.htm

- http://nvd.nist.gov/nvd.cfm?cvename=CVE-2007-5587

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FYI…

Follow-up on Macrovision Secdrv exploit
- http://www.symantec.com/enterprise/securit…ion_secdrv.html
November 6, 2007 - "…Microsoft posted Microsoft Security Advisory (944653) about this issue. With the release of this advisory, I’d like to answer a few follow-up questions for blog readers:
Q: I don’t play games and I don’t use Macrovision software, so am I safe?
A: No. The vulnerable component affected by the bug is the Macrovision driver SECDRV.SYS, which is shipped by default with Windows systems. It is usually installed under the %System%\drivers folder.
Q: Is Windows Vista affected by this vulnerability?
A: Vista is not affected. Only SECDRV versions shipped with Windows XP and 2003 are. Instead the version shipped with Vista is a completely different driver, reworked and not vulnerable to this attack.All users should keep in mind that, in a multi-layered defense perspective, it is possible that malware dropped on the system via some other exploit (e.g. browser vulnerability or the recent PDF exploit) could potentially take advantage of the SECDRV bug to take further control of the computer and bypass other layers of protection.
Q: Where is the patch?
A: Macrovision released a version of the driver today (almost identical to the one shipped with Vista) that fixes this problem. The update is available here:
http://www.macrovision.com/promolanding/7352.htm
It’s not clear at the moment if Microsoft will distribute this update with the next cycle of Windows Update."

- http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/…ory/944653.mspx
Revisions:
• November 05, 2007: Advisory published
• November 07, 2007: Advisory revised to include indentified workarounds for this vulnerability and additional information on what is secdrv.sys.

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FYI…

Microsoft Security Advisory (945713)
Vulnerability in Web Proxy Auto-Discovery (WPAD) Could Allow Information Disclosure
- http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/…ory/945713.mspx
December 3, 2007 - "Microsoft is investigating new public reports of a vulnerability in the way Windows resolves hostnames that do not include a fully-qualified domain name (FQDN). The technology that the vulnerability affects is Web Proxy Auto-Discovery (WPAD). Microsoft has not received any information to indicate that this vulnerability has been publicly used to attack customers, and Microsoft is not aware of any customer impact at this time. Microsoft is aggressively investigating the public reports. Customers whose domain name begins in a third-level or deeper domain, such as “contoso.co.us”, or for whom the following mitigating factors do not apply, are at risk from this vulnerability. Upon completion of this investigation, Microsoft will take the appropriate action to help protect our customers…
Mitigating Factors:
• Customers who do not have a primary DNS suffix configured on their system are not affected by this vulnerability. In most cases, home users that are not members of a domain have no primary DNS suffix configured. Connection-specific DNS suffixes may be provided by some Internet Service Providers (ISPs), and these configurations are not affected by this vulnerability.
• Customers whose DNS domain name is registered as a second-level domain (SLD) below a top-level domain (TLD) are not affected by this vulnerability. Customers whose DNS suffixes reflect this registration would not be affected by this vulnerability. An example of a customer who is not affected is contoso.com or fabrikam.gov, where “contoso” and “fabrikam” are customer registered SLDs under their respective “.com” and “.gov” TLDs.
• Customers who have specified a proxy server via DHCP server settings or DNS are not affected by this vulnerability.
• Customers who have a trusted WPAD server in their organization are not affected by this vulnerability. (See the Workaround section for specific steps in creating a WPAD.DAT file on a WPAD server.)
• Customers who have manually specified a proxy server in Internet Explorer are not at risk from this vulnerability when using Internet Explorer.
• Customers who have disabled 'Automatically Detect Settings' in Internet Explorer are not at risk from this vulnerability when using Internet Explorer…"

- http://secunia.com/advisories/27901/
"…WPAD feature resolves "wpad" hostnames up to the second-level domain, which is potentially untrusted. This can be exploited to conduct man-in-the-middle attacks against third-level or deeper domains…"

:ph34r:
FYI…

Microsoft Security Advisory (943411)
Update to Improve Windows Sidebar Protection
- http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/…ory/943411.mspx
January 8, 2008 - "An update is available for currently supported editions of the Windows Vista operating system. The update to improve Windows Sidebar Protection enables Windows Sidebar to help block gadgets from running in Sidebar. For more information about installing this update, see Microsoft Knowledge Base Article 943411*. For more information about how Windows Sidebar Protection helps block installed gadgets from running in Windows Sidebar, see Microsoft Knowledge Base Article 941411**…"

* http://support.microsoft.com/kb/943411

** http://support.microsoft.com/kb/941411

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FYI…

Microsoft Security Advisory (945713)
Vulnerability in Web Proxy Auto-Discovery (WPAD) Could Allow Information Disclosure
- http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/…ory/945713.mspx
Updated: January 9, 2008
Revisions:
• December 3, 2007: Advisory published.
• January 9, 2008: Advisory updated: The registry key for the Configure a Domain Suffix Search List workaround has been corrected to the proper key of SearchList.

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FYI…

Microsoft Security Advisory (947563)
Vulnerability in Microsoft Excel Could Allow Remote Code Execution
- http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/…ory/947563.mspx
January 15, 2008 - "Microsoft is investigating new public reports of a vulnerability in Microsoft Office Excel 2003 Service Pack 2, Microsoft Office Excel Viewer 2003, Microsoft Office Excel 2002, Microsoft Office Excel 2000, and Microsoft Excel 2004 for Mac. At this time, our initial investigation indicates that customers who are using Microsoft Office Excel 2007 or Microsoft Excel 2008 for Mac, or who have installed Microsoft Office Excel 2003 Service Pack 3 are not affected by this vulnerability. Microsoft is investigating the public reports and customer impact. Upon completion of this investigation, Microsoft will take the appropriate action… At this time, we are aware only of targeted attacks that attempt to use this vulnerability. Additionally, as the issue has not been publicly disclosed broadly, we believe the risk at this time to be limited…
Note: There are no known workarounds for Microsoft Office Excel 2002 or Microsoft Office Excel 2000 at this time…"

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FYI…

Microsoft Security Advisory (950627)
Vulnerability in Microsoft Jet Database Engine (Jet) Could Allow Remote Code Execution
- http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/…ory/950627.mspx
March 21, 2008 - "Microsoft is investigating new public reports of very limited, targeted attacks using a vulnerability in the Microsoft Jet Database Engine that can be exploited through Microsoft Word.
Customers running Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2, Windows Vista, and Windows Vista Service Pack 1 are not vulnerable to the buffer overrun being attacked, as they include a version of the Microsoft Jet Database Engine that is not vulnerable to this issue.
Customers using Microsoft Word 2000 Service Pack 3, Microsoft Word 2002 Service Pack 3, Microsoft Word 2003 Service Pack 2, Microsoft Word 2003 Service Pack 3, Microsoft Word 2007, and Microsoft Word 2007 Service Pack 1 on Microsoft Windows 2000, Windows XP, or Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 are vulnerable to these attacks.
Microsoft is investigating the public reports and customer impact. We are also investigating whether the vulnerability can be exploited through additional applications. Upon completion of this investigation, Microsoft will take the appropriate action to help protect our customers…"

- http://secunia.com/advisories/14896/
Last Update: 2008-03-24
Critical: Highly critical
Impact: System access
Where: From remote
Solution Status: Unpatched…
…affects versions of msjet40.dll prior to 4.0.9505.0…

:ph34r:
RE: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/…ory/950627.mspx

- http://isc.sans.org/diary.html?storyid=4192
Last Updated: 2008-03-25 00:41:39 UTC - "…A few minutes ago Microsoft has posted more details about this issue on the MSRC blog*. Summarizing:
- The Jet Database Engine vulnerability is well-known since March 2005. The main issue now is that it can be exploited through a new attack vector, Microsoft Word (specifically two DOC files), avoiding the mitigations enforced by Outlook and Exchange over this unsafe file type (MDB).
- Microsoft is currently working on the fixes, evaluating if an update may prevent Word from opening MDB files, and checking how to apply the fixed msjet40.dll currently available for Windows Server 2003 SP2, Windows Vista, and beta versions of Windows XP SP3 in other OS versions.
- In the meantime, apart from the general recommendation of not opening untrusted MS Word files, you can follow the two workarounds detailed on the initial advisory:
o Computer-based workaround: Restrict the Microsoft Jet Database Engine from running through the "cacls" command, used to modify the access control lists (ACLs) of files. Applications requiring the Jet Database Engine will not function.
o Infrastructure-based workaround: Block specific files at your mail gateway based on string signatures (if it provides file inspection capabilities). The associated strings plus implementation details for specific mail gateways are detailed on the advisory…"
* http://preview.tinyurl.com/2lvatz
FYI…

Microsoft Security Advisory (951306)
Vulnerability in Windows Could Allow Elevation of Privilege
- http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/…ory/951306.mspx
April 17, 2008 - "Microsoft is investigating new public reports of a vulnerability which could allow elevation of privilege from authenticated user to LocalSystem, affecting Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2 and all supported versions and editions of Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, and Windows Server 2008. Customers who allow user-provided code to run in an authenticated context, such as within Internet Information Services (IIS) and SQL Server, should review this advisory. Hosting providers may be at increased risk from this elevation of privilege vulnerability. Currently, Microsoft is not aware of any attacks attempting to exploit the potential vulnerability. Upon completion of this investigation, Microsoft will take the appropriate action to protect our customers…"
FYI…

Microsoft Security Advisory (950627)
Vulnerability in Microsoft Jet Database Engine Could Allow Remote Code Execution
- http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/…ory/950627.mspx
Updated: May 13, 2008 - "…We have issued Microsoft Security Bulletin MS08-028 to address this issue. For more information about this issue, including download links for an available security update, please review MS08-028*… In addition to immediately installing the update in Microsoft Security Bulletin MS08-028, we recommend that customers with Microsoft Word also immediately install the update in Microsoft Security Bulletin MS08-026**: Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Word Could Allow Remote Code Execution (951207), for the most up-to-date protection against the attack vector for these types of attacks…"

* http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=114750

** http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=117295

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FYI…

Microsoft Security Advisory (953818)
Blended Threat from Combined Attack Using Apple’s Safari on the Windows Platform
- http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/…ory/953818.mspx
Published: May 30, 2008 - "Microsoft is investigating new public reports of a blended threat that allows remote code execution on all supported versions of Windows XP and Windows Vista when Apple’s Safari for Windows has been installed. Safari is not installed with Windows XP or Windows Vista by default; it must be installed independently or through the Apple Software Update application. Customers running Safari on Windows should review this advisory.
At the present time, Microsoft is unaware of any attacks attempting to exploit this blended threat. Upon completion of this investigation, Microsoft will take the appropriate measures to protect our customers. This may include providing a solution through a service pack, the monthly update process, or an out-of-cycle security update, depending on customers needs.
Mitigating Factors:
• Customers who have changed the default location where Safari downloads content to the local drive are -not- affected by this blended threat."
- http://blogs.technet.com/msrc/archive/2008…818-posted.aspx
May 30, 2008

- http://secunia.com/advisories/30467/
Release Date: 2008-06-02
Critical: Highly critical
Impact: System access
Where: From remote
Solution Status: Unpatched
OS: Microsoft Windows Vista, Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition, Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Software: Safari for Windows 3.x
…The vulnerability is reported in Safari running on Windows XP or Vista.
Solution: Set the download location in Safari to a location other than "Desktop"…
Original Advisory: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/…ory/953818.mspx