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MSRC

Security Research & Defense

Defending Websites from XSS attacks with ModSecurity 2.7.3 and OWASP Core Rule Set 2.2.7

Sunday, April 28, 2013

Even though cross-site scripting vulnerabilities have a 15-year history, they remain a big problem in the web security space. According to our research, there are hundreds of new issues discovered each month, and at least a few of them are being used in high-severity attacks. The general problem of cross-site scripting has no easy solution.

Introducing EMET v4 Beta

Thursday, April 18, 2013

Great news! Today we are proud to announce a beta release of the next version of the Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit (EMET) – EMET 4.0. Download it here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=38761 EMET is a free utility that helps prevent memory corruption vulnerabilities in software from being successfully exploited for code execution. It does so by opt-ing in software to the latest security mitigation techniques.

Assessing risk for the April 2013 security updates

Tuesday, April 09, 2013

Today we released nine security bulletins addressing 13 CVE’s. Two of the bulletins have a maximum severity rating of Critical, and seven have a maximum severity rating of Important. We hope that the table below helps you prioritize the deployment of the updates appropriately for your environment. Bulletin Most likely attack vector Max Bulletin Severity Max Exploit-ability Index Likely first 30 days impact Platform mitigations and key notes MS13-028(Internet Explorer) Victim browses to a malicious webpage.

Assessing risk for the March 2013 security updates

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Today we released seven security bulletins addressing 20 CVE’s. Four of the bulletins have a maximum severity rating of Critical, and three have a maximum severity rating of Important. We hope that the table below helps you prioritize the deployment of the updates appropriately for your environment. Bulletin Most likely attack vector Max Bulletin Severity Max Exploit-ability Index Likely first 30 days impact Platform mitigations and key notes MS13-021(Internet Explorer) Victim browses to a malicious webpage.

MS13-027: Addressing an issue in the USB driver requiring physical access

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Today we are addressing a vulnerability in the way that the Windows USB drivers handle USB descriptors when enumerating devices. (KB 2807986). This update represents an expansion of our risk assessment methodology to recognize vulnerabilities that may require physical access, but do not require a valid logon session. Windows typically discovers USB devices when they are inserted or when they change power sources (if they switch from plugged-in power to being powered off of the USB connection itself).

Assessing risk for the February 2013 security updates

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Today we released twelve security bulletins addressing 57 CVE’s. Five of the bulletins have a maximum severity rating of Critical, and seven have a maximum severity rating of Important. We hope that the table below helps you prioritize the deployment of the updates appropriately for your environment. Bulletin Most likely attack vector Max Bulletin Severity Max Exploit-ability rating Likely first 30 days impact Platform mitigations and key notes MS13-010(VML) Victim browses to a malicious webpage.

EMET 3.0 support is now available for enterprise customers

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

We are pleased to announce that as of today customers with access to Microsoft Services Premier and Professional Support can receive EMET related technical assistance. This is an important step for us to better support professional and enterprise customers and answer questions related to EMET deployment, configuration, and troubleshooting. The support will be fee based.

MS13-018: Hard to let go

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

MS13-018 addresses a potential denial-of-service condition in the Windows TCP/IP stack. This vulnerability could be leveraged by an attacker in certain circumstances to exhaust a server’s non paged pool, preventing it from making new TCP connections. The vulnerability is as follows: A Windows victim machine has a TCP/IP connection in an ESTABLISHED state to a remote attacker machine, and the Windows victim machine (not the attacker machine) sends a FIN packet to the remote attacker machine to initiate the connection teardown sequence, as outlined in RFC 793.

Assessing risk for the January 2013 security updates

Tuesday, January 08, 2013

Today we released seven security bulletins addressing 12 CVE’s. Two of the bulletins have a maximum severity rating of Critical, and five have a maximum severity rating of Important. We hope that the table below helps you prioritize the deployment of the updates appropriately for your environment. Bulletin Most likely attack vector Max Bulletin Severity Max Exploit-ability Index Likely first 30 days impact Platform mitigations and key notes MS13-002(MSXML) Victim browses to a malicious webpage.