Posts by Greg Wiseman

3 min Patch Tuesday

Patch Tuesday - April 2018

Over 70 vulnerabilities have been fixed this month [https://portal.msrc.microsoft.com/en-us/security-guidance/releasenotedetail/abf77563-8612-e811-a966-000d3a33a34d] , including 6 in Adobe Flash [https://portal.msrc.microsoft.com/en-US/security-guidance/advisory/ADV180007] ( APSB18-08 [https://helpx.adobe.com/security/products/flash-player/apsb18-08.html]). At a high level, there's nothing too out of the ordinary. Unfortunately, that means the majority of the patched vulnerabilities are once ag

2 min Patch Tuesday

Patch Tuesday - March 2018

There are a lot of fixes this month [https://portal.msrc.microsoft.com/en-us/security-guidance/releasenotedetail/6c8fa125-28f6-e711-a963-000d3a33a34d] : Microsoft's updates include patches for 76 separate vulnerabilities, including two critical Adobe Flash Player remote code execution (RCE) vulnerabilities [https://helpx.adobe.com/security/products/flash-player/apsb18-05.html]. In fact all of this month's critical vulnerabilities are browser-related. This is not surprising considering web brows

2 min Patch Tuesday

Patch Tuesday - February 2018

It's a run-of-the-mill month as far as Patch Tuesdays go. Even so, 50 individual CVEs have been fixed [https://helpx.adobe.com/security/products/acrobat/apsb18-02.html] by Microsoft, most of which (34) are rated "Important". As usual, most of the 14 considered "Critical" are web browser vulnerabilities that could lead to remote code execution (RCE). The most concerning non-browser issue is CVE-2018-0825 [https://portal.msrc.microsoft.com/en-US/security-guidance/advisory/CVE-2018-0825] , an RCE i

3 min Patch Tuesday

Patch Tuesday - January 2018

The first Microsoft patches of 2018 came early, with new updates released late Wednesday, January 3rd. Although this was due to the (somewhat [https://www.freebsd.org/news/newsflash.html#event20180104:01]) coordinated disclosure of the Meltdown and Spectre [/2018/01/04/meltdown-and-spectre-what-you-need-to-know-cve-2017-5715-cve-2017-5753-cve-2017-5754/] vulnerabilities, last week’s updates also contained fixes for 33 additional CVEs. These days, Microsoft releases their OS updates as monolithi

6 min Haxmas

HaXmas Review: A Year of Patch Tuesdays

Today’s installment of the 12 Days of HaXmas [/tag/haxmas] is about 2017’s 12 months of Patch Tuesdays [/tag/patch-tuesday/]. Never mind that there were only eleven months this year, thanks to Microsoft canceling [https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/msrc/2017/02/14/february-2017-security-update-release/] most of February’s planned fixes. This coincided with when they’d planned to [https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/msrc/2016/11/08/furthering-our-commitment-to-security-updates/] roll out their

2 min Patch Tuesday

Patch Tuesday - December 2017

No big surprises from Microsoft this month [https://portal.msrc.microsoft.com/en-us/security-guidance/releasenotedetail/c383fa60-b852-e711-80dd-000d3a32f9b6] , with 70% of the 34 vulnerabilities addressed being web browser defects. Most of these are Critical Remote Code Execution (RCE) vulnerabilities, so administrators should prioritize patching client workstations. It doesn't take sophisticated social engineering tactics to convince most users to visit a malicious web page, or a legitimate but

1 min Patch Tuesday

Patch Tuesday - November 2017

Web browser issues account for two thirds of this month's patched vulnerabilities [https://portal.msrc.microsoft.com/en-us/security-guidance/releasenotedetail/bae9d0d8-e497-e711-80e5-000d3a32fc99] , with 24 CVEs for Edge and 12 for Internet Explorer being fixed. Many of these are classified as Critical (allowing code execution without user interaction). This is no surprise, as browser bugs are typically well represented on Patch Tuesdays. On top of this are five Adobe Flash Player vulnerabilitie

2 min Patch Tuesday

Patch Tuesday - October 2017

Patch Tuesday round-up for October 2017

1 min Patch Tuesday

Patch Tuesday - September 2017

It's a big month, with Microsoft patching [https://portal.msrc.microsoft.com/en-us/security-guidance/releasenotedetail/5984735e-f651-e711-80dd-000d3a32fc99] 85 separate vulnerabilities including the two Adobe Flash Player Remote Code Execution [https://portal.msrc.microsoft.com/en-US/security-guidance/advisory/ADV170013] (RCE) fixes bundled with the Edge and Internet Explorer 11 updates. Continuing recent trends, the bulk of Critical RCE vulnerabilities are client-side, primarily in Edge, IE,

2 min Microsoft

Patch Tuesday - June 2017

This month sees another spate of critical fixes [https://portal.msrc.microsoft.com/en-us/security-guidance/releasenotedetail/40969d56-1b2a-e711-80db-000d3a32fc99] from Microsoft, including patches for a number of Remote Code Execution (RCE) vulnerabilities. Two of these are already known to be exploited in the wild ( CVE-2017-8543 [https://portal.msrc.microsoft.com/en-US/security-guidance/advisory/CVE-2017-8543] and CVE-2017-8464 [https://portal.msrc.microsoft.com/en-US/security-guidance/advis

2 min Microsoft

Patch Tuesday - May 2017

It's a relatively light month as far as Patch Tuesdays go, with Microsoft issuing fixes for a total of seven vulnerabilities as part of their standard update program. However, an eighth, highly critical vulnerability (CVE-2017-0290 [https://portal.msrc.microsoft.com/en-US/security-guidance/advisory/CVE-2017-0290] ) that had some of the security community buzzing over the weekend was also addressed [https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/security/4022344] late Monday evening. A flaw in the

1 min Microsoft

Patch Tuesday - April 2017

This month's updates deliver vital client-side fixes, resolving publicly disclosed remote code execution (RCE) vulnerabilities for Internet Explorer and Microsoft Office that attackers are already exploiting in the wild. In particular, they've patched the CVE-2017-0199 [https://portal.msrc.microsoft.com/en-US/security-guidance/advisory/CVE-2017-0199] zero-day flaw in Office and WordPad, which could allow an attacker to run arbitrary code on a victim's system if they are able to successfully soc

0 min Microsoft

February 2017 Patch Tuesday: Delayed

Earlier today Microsoft announced [https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/msrc/2017/02/14/february-2017-security-update-release/] that they will be delaying this month's security updates due to finding a last-minute issue that could "impact some customers." This may be due to a glitch in their new process [/2017/02/06/a-reminder-about-upcoming-microsoft-vulnerability-content-changes] that they were not able to iron out in time for today's planned release. We will be keeping an eye out for any up

5 min

TLS Coverage Improvements in Nexpose 6.0.2

Over the last couple of years, some of the most serious and widely publicized vulnerabilities have been related to the Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol and its predecessor, Secure Sockets Layer (SSL). Because TLS is so fundamental to keeping network communications secure, new flaws that are discovered can have a disproportionate effect on an organization's risk. From Heartbleed [/2014/04/08/gaping-ssl-my-heartbleeds] to POODLE [http://www.rapid7.com/resources/poodle.jsp], FREAK [https://

5 min Exploits

Oracular Spectacular

Nexpose version 5.9.10 includes significant improvements to its Oracle Database fingerprinting and vulnerability coverage. When configured with appropriate database credentials, Nexpose scans can accurately identify which patches have been applied. This post will go through the steps for setting up such a scan, as well as discuss some of the finer details about Oracle's versioning scheme and the terminology around their quarterly Critical Patch Update program. Scanning Oracle Databases with Nex