Security News
Today is Microsoft's August 2021 Patch Tuesday, and with it comes fixes for three zero-day vulnerabilities and a total of 44 flaws, so please be nice to your Windows admins as they scramble to installed patches. Microsoft has fixed 44 vulnerabilities with today's update, with seven classified as Critical and 37 as Important.
Patch bypass flaw in Pulse Secure VPNs can lead to total compromiseThe patch for a vulnerability in Pulse Connect Secure VPN devices that attackers have been exploiting in the wild can be bypassed, security researcher Rich Warren has found. Vulnerable TCP/IP stack is used by almost 200 device vendorsResearchers have discovered 14 new vulnerabilities affecting the proprietary NicheStack TCP/IP stack, used in OT devices such as the extremely popular Siemens S7 PLCs. A look at the 2021 CWE Top 25 most dangerous software weaknessesThe 2021 Common Weakness Enumeration Top 25 Most Dangerous Software Weaknesses is a demonstrative list of the most common issues experienced over the previous two calendar years.
If you use Microsoft's security only updates each month, be sure to include the security only out-of-band updates for your operating systems, because they must be installed for the PrintNightmare fix; they were not included in the Patch Tuesday set of security only updates. The release of zero-day updates, particularly one of this magnitude, provides an excellent opportunity to validate your emergency patching policies and procedures.
Microsoft has addressed the Windows 10 printing issues caused by changes introduced in the June 2021 cumulative update preview with an update issued during this month's Patch Tuesday. To resolve the printing issues, Microsoft released an emergency fix for Windows 10 2004, Windows 10 20H2, and Windows 10 21H1 on July 9, rolling it out via the Known Issue Rollback feature.
Industrial giants Siemens and Schneider Electric on Tuesday released a total of two dozen advisories covering roughly 100 vulnerabilities affecting their products. The 18 new advisories prepared by Siemens for the July 2021 Patch Tuesday cover nearly 80 vulnerabilities impacting the company's products.
Microsoft released an XL-sized bundle of security fixes for its products for this month's Patch Tuesday, and other vendors are close behind in issuing updates. The Windows goliath's batch for July has 117 patches, 13 for what's said to be critical bugs, 103 important, and one moderate.
Microsoft today released updates to patch at least 116 security holes in its Windows operating systems and related software. Another 103 of the security holes patched this month were flagged as "Important," which Microsoft assigns to vulnerabilities "Whose exploitation could result in compromise of the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of user data, or of the integrity or availability of processing resources."
Microsoft has fixed 117 CVEs, 4 of which are actively exploited. "A pair of Windows kernel privilege elevation flaws should also be high on the patch list as they are being actively exploited. These are exactly the type of vulnerabilities in the ransomware attack toolkit, allowing threat actors to boost their user level from user to admin, for greater control over the environment. Admins should keep an eye on existing and new accounts for suspicious activity."
Today is Microsoft's July 2021 Patch Tuesday, and with it comes fixes for nine zero-day vulnerabilities and a total of 117 flaws, so Windows admins will be pulling their hair out as they scramble to get devices patched and secured. Microsoft has fixed 117 vulnerabilities with today's update, with 13 classified as Critical, 1 Moderate, and 103 as Important.
How to improve your organization's Active Directory security postureActive Directory, a directory service developed by Microsoft for Windows domain networks, is most organizations' primary store for employee authentication and identity management, and controls which assets / applications / systems a user has access to. This makes Active Directory a valuable target for attackers and spur organizations to improve its security.