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Microsoft to Issue Emergency Patch For File-Sharing Hole

Posted by timothy on from the safest-version-of-windows-ever dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft said late Wednesday that it plans to release a critical security update today to plug a security hole present in all supported versions of Windows. The company hasn't released any details about the patch yet, which is expected to be pushed out at 1 p.m. PT. Normally, Redmond issues security updates on Patch Tuesday, the second Tuesday of each month. The Washington Post's Security Fix blog notes that each of the three times in the past that Microsoft has departed from its patch cycle, it was to fix some really nasty vulnerability that criminals already were exploiting to break into Windows PCs." Reader filenavigator points out an article which describes the hole as an SMB vulnerability, and says it "allows anyone to access a Windows machine remotely without any user name or password. Any machine that exposes Windows file sharing is vulnerable." Update: 10/23 17:42 GMT by T : Reader AngryDad adds a link to Microsoft's more detailed memo.

5 of 348 comments (clear)

  1. More info already posted... by Spazholio · · Score: 4, Informative

    http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS08-067.mspx

  2. Pretty serious by IceCreamGuy · · Score: 5, Informative
    I first saw this a couple days ago on the CERT bulletin, http://www.us-cert.gov/cas/bulletins/SB08-294.html, and http://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2008-4038, most serious vulnerability I've ever seen up there:

    Access Vector: Network exploitable
    Access Complexity: Low
    Authentication: Not required to exploit
    Impact Type:Provides administrator access, Allows complete confidentiality, integrity, and availability violation; Allows unauthorized disclosure of information; Allows disruption of service

    In other words: any idiot on your network can gain admin access to any attached Windows-based system with file-sharing enabled. I'm really glad that they're releasing an emergency patch for this, because that's a pretty fucking crazy description of an exploit, especially since it affects all versions of their last 10 years of operating systems.

    1. Re:Pretty serious by Lord+Ender · · Score: 4, Informative

      That's not the scary part. The scary part is that this can be made into a worm which uses a service which is installed by default on almost every windows system, and does not require user interaction to exploit. It's the perfect worm-bait. It's like a von neumann machine near the galactic core.

      --
      A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
  3. Re:Critical vs Important by quantumplacet · · Score: 5, Informative

    No, if you RTFA article, on newer versions the overflow will still work, but require authentication, making it Important. On older versions the exploit can work with no authentication making it Critical. Microsoft has always used this labeling convention for patches.

  4. Re:Useless Windows Update by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Explanation of how the exploit slipped through