The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

Feeds

Microsoft's XML 0-day fix expected in July Patch Tuesday

Hack attack smack

Regcast training : Hyper-V 3.0, VM high availability and disaster recovery

Microsoft is planning to release nine bulletins, three critical, as part of the July edition of its Patch Tuesday monthly update cycle.

One of the three crucial advisories is expected* to offer patches for a serious XML Core Services vulnerability, disclosed but not fixed in June’s Patch Tuesday. This vulnerability has been actively exploited in attacks over recent weeks. The other two crucial bulletins cover unspecified problems in Internet Explorer and Windows.

The remaining six bulletins are rated "important" and grapple with flaws in Windows, Office, Sharepoint and Office for the Mac.

Redmond has also been rolling out an improved version of the Windows Update client over recent weeks, designed to address shortcomings in the patching mechanism abused by the Flame cyber-espionage tool. These improved patching measures will come into play in earnest with next week's update, which is due to arrive on 10 July.

Microsoft's advisory can be found here. Additional commentary from Wolfgang Kandek, CTO at vulnerability scanning firm Qualys, can be found here. ®

Bootnote

* The majority of security watchers expect Redmond to patch the XML flaw next Tuesday but this remains unconfirmed. Paul Henry, security and forensic analyst at Lumension, certainly has his doubts.

"It remains unclear if Microsoft will be issuing a patch this Patch Tuesday for the XML Core Services issue that is currently being actively exploited in IE attacks," Henry writes. "Microsoft normally includes details in their pre-release information if a Day Zero patch is included. However, in the July pre-release, no mention of the issue was included."

Agentless Backup is Not a Myth

Common theme, common prevention.

An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could gain the same user rights as the logged on user.

[broken-record] Running as a non-admin would prevent anything exploiting this from breaking the OS. [/broken-record]

(I want to see a "nothing to see here, move along" icon.)

3
0

Re: That's not an XML bug...

Umm, I read the title as being Microsoft's implementation being at fault, rather than XML per se. I can't really see where you got the Register blaming XML as a whole.

2
0

That's not an XML bug...

That's a Microsoft bug. Get your headlines right!

1
0

More from The Register

 breaking news
NSA PRISM snoop-gate: Won't someone think of the children, wails Apple
10,000 things probed, mostly about missing kids, Alzheimer patients, we're told
 breaking news
NSA PRISM-gate: Relax, GCHQ spooks 'keep us safe', says Cameron
Whatever they are up to, it's all above board, we're told
PRISM snitch claims NSA hacked Chinese targets since 2009
Snowden suddenly looks safer in Hong Kong after revelations
 breaking news
US chief spook: Look, we only want to spy on 6.66 BEELLLION of you
Americans assured they are not in the NSA's sights
Speech-to-text drives motorists to distraction
Will talking to you mean I crash into that car up ahead, Siri?
DHS warns of vulns in hospital medical equipment
Has your doctor's anasthesia machine been hacked?
 breaking news
'BadNews is malware' says outfit that found it
Google says code harmless but Lookout says code base is evolving
Panda-peddlers cuffed for chess gambling gambit
More porridge on the menu for Chinese coders after second offence
 breaking news
Yes, maybe we should keep hackers in the clink for YEARS, mulls EU
Watch out black hats, they just might throw away the key
Internet fraud still stings suckers
Australians twice as gullible as Americans