Microsoft Updates September 2013

Microsoft releases a long list of security bulletins this month on the server and client side, patching a longer list of vulnerabilities in this month’s array of technologies. Only four of the bulletins are rated “critical” this month: Internet Explorer, a variety of built-in Windows components, and Sharepoint and Office Web Services. Thirteen security bulletins are released in total, patching almost fifty vulnerabilities. Mostly every one of this month’s vulnerabilities were reported privately, other than the XSS vulnerability in Sharepoint, which Microsoft claims would be difficult to exploit. In all likelihood, at some point Windows folks will have to reboot following download and install of around 100Mb of system updates this month.

For mass exploitation purposes, the most problematic issues have to do with Internet Explorer, with working exploits likely being developed in the near future to attack these memory corruption vulnerabilities. These are the sort of things that can happen to anyone online, so all Windows users should address them asap. These ten vulnerabilities enable remote code execution across all supported versions of IE across all Windows clients and servers, so most likely, they will receive immediate attention from the offensive security global peanut gallery.

On the targeted attack side, Sharepoint and Web Office Service administrators need to be aware of the critical vulnerabilities addressed with the large cumulative update MS013-067. Flaws in this code base enable RCE that could be exploited with the spear phishing techniques very commonly and effectively in use.

Also problematic from both perspectives is this interesting Outlook update, which patches a flaw in Outlook 2007 and 2010 S/MIME handling. It can be triggered in preview mode, which seems to make this the first severe, potentially wormable issue seen in Outlook in years. Patch immediately.

The long list of important updates are presented at Microsoft site here.