Hi everyone,
As usual the holiday season is a busy time for everyone including those of us here in the MSRC. I hope that everyone has finished their holiday shopping so they can enjoy the long weekend. This is Mike Reavey by the way in case anyone was wondering.
Aside from discussing the holidays, the reason I am dropping in on the blog is that right now we are closely monitoring developments related to a public posting of proof of concept code targeting an issue with the Client Server Run-Time Subsystem. The PoC reportedly allows for local elevation of privilege on Windows 2000 SP4, Windows Server 2003 SP1, Windows XP SP1, Windows XP SP2 and Windows Vista operating systems. Initial indications are that in order for the attack to be successful, the attacker must already have authenticated access to the target system. Of course these are preliminary findings and we have activated our emergency response process involving a multitude of folks who are investigating the issue in depth to determine the full scope and potential impact to Microsoft’s customers. Currently we have not observed any public exploitation or attack activity regarding this issue. While I know this is a vulnerability that impacts Windows Vista I still have every confidence that Windows Vista is our most secure platform to date. As always, we here at the MSRC encourage everyone to enable a firewall, apply all security updates and install anti-virus and anti-spyware software.
Regardless of it being the holiday season the MSRC will be monitoring overall threat conditions for this and any other issue reported to us. If we do see anything that we believe puts Microsoft customers at risk, or significant new developments, we will update everyone through our standard mechanisms including this blog and if need be, an Advisory with additional details.
Happy Holidays,
Mike
*This posting is provided “AS IS” with no warranties, and confers no rights.*