Microsoft Patches One Actively Exploited Vulnerability, Amongst Others

December introduced a comparatively gentle Patch Tuesday, with one vulnerability having been actively exploited. Of all 70 vulnerabilities mounted, 16 have been labeled as essential.

“This yr, cybersecurity professionals have to be on Santa’s good listing, or, on the very least, Microsoft’s,” Tyler Reguly, affiliate director of security R&D at cybersecurity software program and providers firm Fortra, instructed TechRepublic in an e-mail.

Microsoft patches leaky CLFS

CVE-2024-49138 is an elevation of privilege vulnerability within the Home windows Frequent Log File System (CLFS) driver. The motive force is a key component of Home windows used to put in writing transaction logs. Misuse of the driving force, particularly via improper bounds checking, might let an attacker achieve SYSTEM privileges. From there, they might steal information or set up backdoors.

“Provided that CLFS is a regular element throughout a number of variations of Home windows, together with server and consumer installations, the vulnerability has intensive attain, particularly in enterprise environments,” Mike Walters, president and co-founder of Action1, stated in an e-mail to TechRepublic.

Addressing this vulnerability must be a excessive precedence since it has already been exploited.

Microsoft has launched patches for eight different CLFS vulnerabilities this yr, in response to Reguly.

“That’s, nevertheless, an enchancment for Microsoft, who patched 12 CLFS vulnerabilities in 2022 and 10 CLFS vulnerabilities in 2023,” Reguly wrote.

SEE: The U.S. sanctioned Chinese language security firm Sichuan Silence for exploiting a vulnerability in Sophos firewalls utilized in authorities infrastructure.

‘Tis the season … for distant code execution

One vulnerability scored increased than 9 on the CVSS severity system: CVE-2024-49112, which scored CVSS 9.8. A distant code execution vulnerability might permit an attacker to execute code contained in the Home windows Light-weight Listing Access Protocol (LDAP) service.

“Home windows Server methods performing as area controllers (DCs) are particularly in danger, given their essential function in managing listing providers,” stated Walters.

This makes December each a very good time to put in the patch for this vulnerability and to recollect an necessary issue of security hygiene: Area controllers shouldn’t have web entry. Reguly identified that corporations following the Division of Protection’s DISA STIG for Lively Listing Domains ought to have already got blocked area controllers from web connections.

Action 1 famous that 9 of the December vulnerabilities stem associated to the potential distant code execution.

“Organizations ought to keep away from exposing RDP providers to the worldwide web and implement strong safety controls to mitigate dangers,” wrote Walters. “These flaws additional show the hazards of leaving RDP open and unprotected.”

“If nothing else, we will say that Microsoft is constant,” Reguly added. “Whereas it might be good to see the variety of vulnerabilities annually reducing, not less than consistency lets us know what to anticipate. Since Microsoft has signed CISA’s Secure by Design pledge, we may even see these numbers drop sooner or later.”

Time to examine in on Apple, Google Chrome, and different Patch Tuesday safety updates

Many different corporations time their month-to-month releases for the second Tuesday of the month. Adobe offered an inventory of safety updates. Different main patches, as collected by Action 1, embody:

• Patches for vulnerabilities in Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox.
• A safety replace for over 100 Cisco units that use the NX-OS information center-focused working system.
• Fixes for a number of native privilege escalation vulnerabilities in Linux.
• Patches for 2 actively exploited zero-day vulnerabilities in Macs with Intel chips.

An entire listing of Home windows safety updates will be discovered at Microsoft Support.