The latest instalment of Microsoft Patch Tuesday has much to offer, with 71 new vulnerabilities being patched alongside the 21 addressed for Microsoft Edge earlier this month. Included in this issue of Patch Tuesday are 3 critical vulnerabilities, with the remaining 68 were labelled as important. While 3 of the flaws have been publicly disclosed, none appear to have been exploited in the wild.
This month's release covers security updates for key components including:
With a CVSS of 7.8, this critical remote code execution vulnerability exists in the HEVC Video Extension product and can only be exploited by an authenticated user. Exploitation requires the victim to open a video file containing malicious code; this allows the code to execute on the target machine.
Similar to the previous vulnerability this leverages a video format to use as a means of executing arbitrary code. This critical vulnerability also scores 7.8. Unlike in the previous vulnerability, this video format is supported by modern browsers making it an easier method for users to execute.
This critical vulnerability scoring 8.8 could allow an authenticated attacker to utilise the elevated permissions of another account through the use of objects in memory being handled incorrectly allowing for code execution.
Although not labelled as critical by Microsoft, with a CVSS score of 8.8, this vulnerability shouldn’t be overlooked. This vulnerability requires the target to actively connect to a malicious RDP server, typically through social engineering; from here the attacker to execute code through a vulnerability within the remote desktop client. This vulnerability has been seen in the wild and is known to be utilised to gain access to a system and infect it with ransomware.
For a full list of this month’s updates please see the links below:
Patch Tuesday release notes: https://msrc.microsoft.com/update-guide/releaseNote/2022-Mar
Security update guide: https://msrc.microsoft.com/update-guide/
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Stuart Hare is a Technologist with a passion for helping people in all aspects of IT & Cyber Security. Stuart is the Founder of Ironshare, an Information and Cyber Security company providing consultancy and managed services.
Samuel is a Security Analyst with Ironshare, an Information and Cyber Security company providing Security consultancy and managed services.
Joshua is working as a Managed Service Lead with Ironshare, an Information and Cyber Security company providing Security consultancy and managed services.
