windows – Page 38 – Computer Security Articles

Credit to Author: Woody Leonhard| Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2018 08:29:00 -0700

‘Softie Rodney Viana has posted details and a workaround for the “System.CodeDom.CodeBinaryOperatorExpression is not marked as authorized” bug.

Apparently, installing last Tuesday’s KB 4457916 Security Only updates for .Net Framework 3.5, 4.5.2, 4.6, 4.6.1, 4.6.2, 4.7, 4.7.1, and 4.7.2 for Windows 8.1 and Server 2012 R2 causes a hard stop with any SharePoint Workflows. (Workflows are set up by an admin to handle the flow of documents through a series of steps.)

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QuickHeal Security

CVE-2018-8440 – Task Scheduler ALPC Zero-Day Exploit in the Wild

September 12, 2018 admin CVE-2018-8440, exploit, microsoft windows, Security, windows

Credit to Author: Sameer Patil| Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2018 13:30:14 +0000

The recent zero-day vulnerability CVE-2018-8440 in Windows Task Scheduler enables attackers to perform a privilege elevation on targeted machines. Microsoft has released a security advisory CVE-2018-8440 on September 11, 2018 to address this issue. According to Microsoft, successful exploitation of this vulnerability could run arbitrary code in the security context…

ComputerWorld Independent

Time to turn off Windows Automatic Update and brace for impact

September 10, 2018 admin Security, windows

Credit to Author: Woody Leonhard| Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2018 06:19:00 -0700

August 2018 was a relatively innocuous patching month, although the final resolution to the August problems didn’t appear until late Friday night just as the month was coming to a close — on a three-day weekend in the US.

We’ve seen the same pattern repeat itself almost every month since the beginning of the year: The first round of Microsoft security patches (notably including Win10 patches) introduce bugs, while subsequent rounds of patches each month squash most of them. If we’re lucky.

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ComputerWorld Independent

Get caught up on your July and August Windows/Office patches

September 5, 2018 admin Microsoft Office, Security, windows

Credit to Author: Woody Leonhard| Date: Wed, 05 Sep 2018 12:29:00 -0700

With the arrival of “Fourth Week” patches on the last working day of August, and having had a few days to vet them, it looks as if we’re ready to release the cracklin’ Kraken.

The steaming pile of Windows Intel microcode patches

Microsoft continues to unleash microcode patches for Meltdown and Spectre (versions 1, 2, 3, 3a, 4, n for n >=4). You won’t get stung by any of them, unless you specifically go looking for trouble.

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ComputerWorld Independent

Windows and .Net finally get their 'D Week' patches, as Intel microcode fixes go wacko

August 31, 2018 admin Security, windows

Credit to Author: Woody Leonhard| Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2018 05:02:00 -0700

Time for the final August patching shoe to drop.

Late last night Microsoft released a flurry of patches, posting them on the Microsoft Update Catalog. Some are available through Windows Update, some aren’t.

As of early Friday morning, the Win10 patches are not available through WSUS, the update server service. It’s not clear if that’s a mistake, a hesitation — or if somebody just went home last night and forgot.

Let’s hear it for patching predictability. And transparency.

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MalwareBytes Security

Fileless malware: getting the lowdown on this insidious threat

August 29, 2018 admin file history, fileless infections, fileless malware, fileless malware attacks, Kovter, magnitude EK, malware, poweliks, Powershell, Ram, SamSam, samsam ransomware, semi-fileless, SOC team, Threat analysis, windows

Credit to Author: Vasilios Hioureas| Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2018 16:48:35 +0000

In this series of articles, we provide an in-depth discussion of fileless malware and their related attacks. In part one, we cover a brief overview of the problems with and general features of fileless malware, laying the groundwork for technical analysis of various samples employing fileless and semi-fileless methods.

Categories:

Tags: file history fileless infections fileless malware fileless malware attacks kovter magnitude EK poweliks powershell RAM samsam samsam ransomware semi-fileless SOC team windows

ComputerWorld Independent

Microsoft Patch Alert: Mainstream August patches look remarkably good, but watch out for the bad boys

August 23, 2018 admin microsoft, Microsoft Office, PCs, Security, windows

Credit to Author: Woody Leonhard| Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2018 14:01:00 -0700

So far this month we’ve only seen one cumulative update for each version of Windows 10, and one set of updates (Security only, Monthly Rollup) for Win7 and 8.1. With a few notable exceptions, those patches are going in rather nicely. What a difference a month makes.

We’ve also seen a massive influx of microcode updates for the latest versions of Windows 10, running on Intel processors. Those patches, released on Aug. 20 and 21, have tied many admins up in knots, with conflicting descriptions and iffy rollout sequences.

Big problems for small niches

At this point, I’m seeing complaints about a handful of patches:

The original SQL Server 2016 SP2 patch, KB 4293807, was so bad Microsoft yanked it — although the yanking took almost a week. It’s since been replaced by KB 4458621, which appears to solve the problem.
The Visual Studio 2015 Update 3 patch, KB 4456688, has gone through two versions — released Aug. 14, pulled, then re-released Aug. 18 — and the re-released version still has problems. There’s a hotfix available from the KB article, but you’d be well advised to avoid it.
Outlook guru Diane Poremsky notes on Slipstick that the version of Outlook in the July Office 365 Click-to-Run won’t allow you to start Outlook if it’s already running. “Only one version of Outlook can run at a time” — even if the “other version” is, in fact, the same version.
The bug in the Win10 1803 upgrade that resets TLS 1.2 settings persists, but there’s an out-of-the-blue patch KB 4458116 that fixes the problem for Intuit QuickBooks Desktop.
The Win10 1803 cumulative update has an acknowledged bug in the way the Edge browser interacts with Application Guard. Since about two of you folks use that combination, I don’t consider it a big deal. The solution, should you encounter the bug, is to uninstall the August cumulative update, manually install the July cumulative update, and then re-install the August cumulative update — thus adding a new dimension to the term “cumulative.”
The Win7 Monthly Rollup has an old acknowledged bug about “missing file (oem<number>.inf).” Although Microsoft hasn’t bothered to give us any details, it looks like that’s mostly a problem with VMware.

The rest of the slate looks remarkably clean. Haven’t seen that in a long while.

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Security Sophos

What you need to know for Patch Tuesday, August 2018

August 17, 2018 admin Acrobat, adobe, Flash, microsoft, office, patch, Patch Tuesday, PDF, reader, SophosLabs Uncut, Updates, vulnerabilities, Vulnerability, windows, Windows update

Credit to Author: Andrew ODonnell| Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2018 19:16:44 +0000

With 23 critical vulnerabilities addressed in patches from Microsoft and Adobe, August is turning out to be a good month for updates — but don’t delay installing them.<img src=”http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/sophos/dgdY/~4/_Fw-RIvgU1s” height=”1″ width=”1″ alt=””/>