Patch Tuesday Analysis for October 2011

A variety of security updates were released today both for some types of servers and workstations. The priority you give will depend on the types of systems you are responsible for. Note that MS11-076 and MS11-082 contain vulnerabilities that are publicy disclosed. This may shorten the time we have until there is an active exploit.

In August of 2010 Microsoft alerted us to a new attack vector. The class of vulnerabilities is called "Insecure Library Loading". So far 18 Security bulletins have been released due to Insecure Library Loading. MS11-075 is with Microsoft Active Accessibility and MS11-076 is with Media Center. This class of attacks can also find vulnerabilities in third-party programs so admins should be alert to updates from other vendors.

Multiple vulnerabilities are found in some kernel-mode drivers. The kernel is the core of the operating system and kernel-mode drivers can be especially bothersome since they access the kernel directly. These are addressed in MS11-077.

MS11-078 has to do with vulnerabilities in .NET framework and Microsoft Silverlight.

After installing the updates (MS11-079) for Microsoft Forefront User Access Gateway (UAG) the administrator must additionally open the console and activate the configuration. Users with access to the UAG are vulnerable but the patches are made on the server.

The update MS11-080 addresses a privilege elevation vulnerability in the in the Microsoft Windows Ancillary Function Driver (AFD). For Windows XP and 2003 it replaces a similar fix released last June. The vulnerability addressed here however had not been publicly disclosed.

MS11-081 is a critical update for Internet Explorer. It addresses multiple vulnerabilities by modifying the way IE handles objects in memory. This update applies to all supported versions of IE.

For those running Host Integration Server which integrates with IBM systems, MS11-082 provides an update for two publicly disclosed vulnerabilities. A properly configured firewall would mitigate these DoS attacks and is suggested as a workaround.

Get more of my knowledge on the security log with my Security Log Resource kit or get prescriptive best practice guidance what events to monitor and how with my Rosetta Audit Logging Kits.

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