Microsoft Patches 5 Zero-Day Vulnerabilities

Microsoft has released its monthly Patch Tuesday update including a total of 10 security bulletin, and you are required to apply the whole package of patches altogether, whether you like it or not.

That's because the company is kicking off a controversial new all-or-nothing patch model this month by packaging all security updates into a single payload, removing your ability to pick and choose which individual patches to install.

October's patch bundle includes fixes for at least 5 separate dangerous zero-day vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer, Edge, Windows and Office products that attackers were already exploiting in the wild before the patch release.

The patches for these zero-day flaws are included in MS16-118, MS16-119, MS16-120, MS16-121 and MS16-126. All the zero-days are being exploited in the wild, allowing attackers to execute a remote command on victim's system.

Although none of the zero-day flaws were publicly disclosed prior to Tuesday, the company was aware of attacks exploiting these flaws, said Microsoft.

Here's the list of Zero-Day Vulnerabilities:

1. CVE-2016-3298: An Internet Explorer zero-day flaw is a browser information disclosure vulnerability patched in MS16-118 bulletin among 11 other vulnerabilities. It could allow attackers to "test for the presence of files on disk."
2. CVE-2016-7189: A zero-day in the browser's scripting engine has been patched in Microsoft Edge bulletin, MS16-119, among others. The flaw is a remote code execution vulnerability.
3. CVE-2016-3393: Another zero-day in Microsoft Windows Graphics Component has been addressed in MS16-120 that could be exploited over the web, or via an email containing malicious file or over a file-sharing app to conduct RCE attack.
4. CVE-2016-7193: A single zero-day in Office has been addressed in MS16-121 bulletin. The flaw is a remote code execution vulnerability caused by the way Office handles RTF files.
5. CVE-2016-3298: The last publicly attacked zero-day has been patched in MS16-126, which is the only zero-day that is not rated critical, just moderate. The flaw is an information disclosure bug affecting Vista, Windows 7 and 8 and exists in the Microsoft Internet Messaging API.

Another bulletin rated critical is MS16-122 that patches a remote code execution flaw, CVE-2016-0142, in the Windows Video Control, affecting Windows Vista, 7, 8 and 10. The bug can be exploited when a user opens a crafted file or app from the web page or email.

Microsoft also patched twelve vulnerabilities in Adobe Flash Player for Windows 8.1, Windows 10, and Server 2012 in MS16-127.

Rest bulletins rated important or moderate, including MS16-123, MS16-124 and MS16-125, patches five elevation of privilege vulnerabilities in Windows Kernel-Mode, four elevation of privilege vulnerabilities in Windows Registry, and an elevation of privilege flaw in Windows Diagnostics Hub respectively.

Adobe Patch Update

Adobe also released a new version of Flash Player today that patched a dozen of vulnerabilities in its software, most of which were remote code execution flaws.

Adobe has also published code clean-ups for 71(!) CVE-listed security flaws in Acrobat and Reader, along with a fix for a single elevation of privilege bug in Creative Cloud.

Users are advised to apply Windows and Adobe patches to keep away hackers and cyber criminals from taking control over your computer.

A system reboot is necessary for installing updates, so admins are advised to save work on PCs where the whole package of patches is deployed before initiating the process.

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[Latest] Microsoft Silently Re-Enables Windows 10 Upgrades on Windows 7 and 8.1 PCs

Microsoft's getting ready for the more aggressive upgrade phase of Windows 10 – when the new OS will show up first as optional, and then as recommended download in Windows Update – so the company has recently made some changes to Windows 7 and 8.1 PCs to make sure that more computers get it.

Basically, settings on PCs that were previously configured not to receive the upgrade to Windows 10 have been reset and it appears that one of the updates that Microsoft deployed on Windows 7 and 8.1 PCs keeps checking every day to make sure that no other changes are made to this behavior.

Update being re-offered several times :

The information comes from the creator of GWX Control Panel, an application developed to block the upgrade to Windows 10.

"Over Thanksgiving weekend I started getting reports that the Windows Update 'AllowOSUpgrade' setting was getting flipped back on on a number of peoples' PCs, and it keeps re-setting itself at least once a day if they switch it back off," Josh Mayfield was quoted.

In other words Windows 7 and 8.1 computers can now easily receive the upgrade to Windows 10 and for the moment, there doesn't seem to be any other way to stop this from happening than to manually refuse the new OS.

It's all being made through recently-shipped Windows updates for older versions, and according to Mayfield, the very same update is being re-offered again and again.

"Microsoft has released this update several times," Mayfield continued. "It doesn't change the name of the update, but every version is new, with new binary files."

Starting in early 2016, seeing Windows 10 in Windows Update will be quite normal, as Microsoft changes its strategy and makes it an optional update for everyone. At a later time, the upgrade will become “recommended update,” so it becomes harder to avoid installing Windows 10 if you really wish to keep your computer fully patched.

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