Microsoft Patch Tuesday Roundup - July 2011

Remote exploits come in many different shapes, forms and sizes. Listening services, web browsers and wireless technologies can all contain vulnerabilities that allow for "remote exploitation". The difficult part is defining just how "remote" an attacker needs to be. Obviously, the exposed network service could theoretically be exploited by anyone connected to the Internet. Web browser exploits require that a user visit a site (by choice or surreptitiously) that loads malicious code. Wireless technologies such as Bluetooth require that you be in range. Here's where it gets interesting! There are many situations where end users could be in range of attackers, including conferences, coffee shops, airports, or even right in your own facility. Having said that, it would be difficult for these attacks to target a specific organization unless you were physically on-site, which occurs less frequently than someone attacking you over the Internet. However, we should note that Bluetooth uses the 2.4 GHz spectrum for communications and can be extended using the same or similar gear as WiFi.

Nessus and SecurityCenter users can enumerate the Bluetooth devices in their environments using Nessus plugin ID 43830, "WMI Bluetooth Network Adapter Enumeration". Using credentials, this plugin will detect if a host has a Bluetooth adapter enabled.

Also of note, MS11-054 fixes 15 vulnerabilities in Windows kernel-mode drivers that lead to privilege escalation and a remote code execution in Microsoft's Visio application. The Visio vulnerability is interesting because network and systems engineers with a higher level of access to networks and systems use Visio as a documentation tool.

To further aid in your efforts to evaluate the exposures presented by the vulnerabilities addressed by Microsoft’s Patch Tuesday, Tenable's Research team has published Nessus plugins for each of the security bulletins issued this month:

Resources

• Microsoft Security Bulletin Summary for July 2011
• OSVDB Microsoft Bulletins - Complete Reference
• A guide to exploit mitigations and the July 2011 security bulletin release (Microsoft Security Response Center Blog)