Security News
Microsoft has addressed a known issue causing the Remote Desktop app to freeze on Windows 11 systems after installing the Windows 11 2022 Update. "After installing Windows 11, version 22H2, the Windows Remote Desktop application might stop responding when connecting via a Remote Desktop gateway or Remote Desktop Connection Broker," Redmond explains on the Windows health dashboard entry published in November.
Microsoft has started the forced rollout of Windows 11 22H2 to systems running Windows 11 21H2 that are approaching their end-of-support date on October 10, 2023. The automated feature update rollout phase comes after Windows 11 22H2 has also become available for broad deployment today to users with eligible devices via Windows Update.
Microsoft urged customers today to keep their on-premises Exchange servers patched by applying the latest supported Cumulative Update to have them always ready to deploy an emergency security update. "To defend your Exchange servers against attacks that exploit known vulnerabilities, you must install the latest supported CU and the latest SU," The Exchange Team said.
IoT hardware is at the heart of much modern operational technology, the systems that support businesses, the systems that mix modern IoT hardware with legacy control and data collection devices. So how can we protect our devices, networks and businesses, especially when we already have a large estate of deployed hardware? Microsoft's Defender for IoT is one option, adding network sensors and firmware analysis tools to help spot compromised and at-risk hardware and working in conjunction with Microsoft Sentinel to use machine learning to identify threats early.
Most Windows-powered datacenter systems and applications remain vulnerable to a spoofing bug in CryptoAPI that was disclosed by the NSA and the UK National Cyber Security Center and patched by Microsoft last year, according to Akamai's researchers. The bug isn't a remote code execution flaw; it's a vulnerability that allows someone to pretend to be another to an application or operating system, in the context of identity and certificate cryptography checks on Windows.
Microsoft in March will start blocking Excel XLL add-ins from the internet to shut down an increasingly popular attack vector for miscreants. Security researchers have said that after Microsoft began blocking Visual Basic for Application macros by default in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint in July 2022 to cut off a popular attack avenue, threat groups began using other options, such as LNK files and ISO and RAR attachments.
Microsoft is investigating an ongoing outage impacting multiple Microsoft 365 services after customers have reported experiencing connection issues."We're investigating issues impacting multiple Microsoft 365 services. We've identified a potential networking issue and are reviewing telemetry to determine the next troubleshooting steps," the Microsoft 365 team said in a Twitter thread. "We've isolated the problem to networking configuration issues, and we're analyzing the best mitigation strategy to address these without causing additional impact."
Microsoft has confirmed an issue causing the Windows Start menu to become unresponsive and some applications to no longer launch. The newly acknowledged issue affects only client platforms, including Windows 10 20H2, 21H2, and 22H2, and Windows 11, version 22H2. "The Start menu, Windows search, and Universal Windows Platform apps might not work as expected or might have issues opening," Redmond said.
Microsoft is working on adding XLL add-in protection for Microsoft 365 customers by including automated blocking of all such files downloaded from the Internet. "In order to combat the increasing number of malware attacks in recent months, we are implementing measures that will block XLL add-ins coming from the internet," Redmond says.
Microsoft's move last year to block macros by default in Office applications is forcing miscreants to find other tools with which to launch cyberattacks, including the software vendor's LNK files - the shortcuts Windows uses to point to other files. The files are also helping criminals gain initial access into victims' systems before running such threats as the Qakbot backdoor malware, malware loader Bumblebee, and IcedID, a malware dropper, according to the Talos researchers.