Microsoft Patch Tuesday – March 2011

Before I get started today, I want to first point out that tomorrow's Vulnerability Expert Forum (VEF) will be at a new time - 1PM PST. Sign up to hear what Marc Maiffret and the eEye Research team have to say about today’s security bulletins and other security related topics. For this Patch Tuesday, Microsoft released a total of three security bulletins. All three are related to the DLL preloading vulnerability first announced last August. Including today's release, Microsoft has issued over 10 separate security bulletins related to the DLL preloading vulnerability, with probably more to come. For those who haven't done so, it is a good idea to follow the mitigation steps outlined in KB2269637 as numerous other third-party software products are affected and unpatched. Microsoft still has a lot of unpatched zero day vulnerabilities, so as per their recent cycle, I would anticipate a large April release. Here are our recommendations for the three security updates. Retina Network Security Scanner customers can view the list of audits associated with these bulletins.

Deploy Immediately MS11-015 – Vulnerabilities in Windows Media Could Allow Remote Code Execution (2510030) Recommendation: Deploy patches immediately to prevent exploitation by attackers. Until the patches can be installed, the loading of libraries from WebDAV and remote network shares should be disabled, the WebClient Service should be disabled, TCP ports 139 and 445 should be blocked on the external firewall, and strict file permissions on the Stream Buffer Engine (i.e. sbe.dll) should be enforced. Additionally, as with all DLL Preloading vulnerabilities, disable the WebDAV client and do not open ".wtv", ".dvr-ms", and ".mpg" files from untrusted sources. MS11-016 – Vulnerability in Microsoft Groove Could Allow Remote Code Execution (2494047) Recommendation: Deploy patches immediately to prevent exploitation by attackers. Until the patches can be installed, the loading of libraries from WebDAV and remote network shares should be disabled, the WebClient Service should be disabled, and TCP ports 139 and 445 should be blocked on the external firewall. Additionally, as with all DLL Preloading vulnerabilities, disable the WebDAV client and do not open ".vcg" and ".gta" files from untrusted sources. MS11-017 – Vulnerability in Remote Desktop Client Could Allow Remote Code Execution (2508062) Recommendation: Deploy patches immediately to prevent exploitation by attackers. Until the patches can be installed, the loading of libraries from WebDAV and remote network shares should be disabled, the WebClient Service should be disabled, and TCP ports 139 and 445 should be blocked on the external firewall. Additionally, as with all DLL Preloading vulnerabilities, disable the WebDAV client and do not open ".rdp" files from untrusted sources.