January Black Tuesday overview

Overview of the January 2008 Microsoft patches and their status.

#	Affected	Contra Indications	Known Exploits	Microsoft rating	ISC rating(*)
#	Affected	Contra Indications	Known Exploits	Microsoft rating	clients	servers
MS08-001	Multiple vulnerabilities in the TCP/IP stack lead to arbitrary code execution and denial of service. Replaces MS06-032
MS08-001	TCP/IP stack CVE-2007-5354 CVE-2007-5348	KB 941644	No publicly known exploits	Critical	Critical	Critical
MS08-002	Input validation errors in Local Security Authority Subsystem Service (LSASS) lead to local exploitation and privilege escalation.
MS08-002	LSASS CVE-2007-5352	KB 943485	No publicly known exploits	Important	Important	Important

We will update issues on this page as they evolve.
We appreciate updates
US based customers can call Microsoft for free patch related support on 1-866-PCSAFETY

(*): ISC rating

We use 4 levels:
- PATCH NOW: Typically used where we see immediate danger of exploitation. Typical environments will want to deploy these patches ASAP. Workarounds are typically not accepted by users or are not possible. This rating is often used when typical deployments make it vulnerable and exploits are being used or easy to obtain or make.
- Critical: Anything that needs little to become "interesting" for the dark side. Best approach is to test and deploy ASAP. Workarounds can give more time to test.
- Important: Things where more testing and other measures can help.
- Less Urgent: Typically we expect the impact if left unpatched to be not that big a deal in the short term. Do not forget them however.
The difference between the client and server rating is based on how you use the affected machine. We take into account the typical client and server deployment in the usage of the machine and the common measures people typically have in place already. Measures we presume are simple best practices for servers such as not using outlook, MSIE, word etc. to do traditional office or leisure work.
The rating is not a risk analysis as such. It is a rating of importance of the vulnerability and the perceived or even predicted threat for affected systems. The rating does not account for the number of affected systems there are. It is for an affected system in a typical worst-case role.
Only the organization itself is in a position to do a full risk analysis involving the presence (or lack of) affected systems, the actually implemented measures, the impact on their operation and the value of the assets involved.
All patches released by a vendor are important enough to have a close look if you use the affected systems. There is little incentive for vendors to publicize patches that do not have some form of risk to them.

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Swa Frantzen -- Gorilla Security

Swa

760 Posts

Jan 8th 2008

I just received an email newsletter from Network World discussing exploit code for MS08-001 (http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/011708-attack-code-released-for-critical.html).

To quote: 'It was released (http://seclists.org/dailydave/2008/q1/0017.html) Thursday to security professionals who use Immunity's Canvas computer security testing software."

John

4 Posts

John,

The released exploit for MS08-001 so far is DoS only, not execution of code. This isn't the worst that could happen (yet). Some of the write-ups I've seen seem to miss that important aspect.

Swa

760 Posts