Introducing Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit (EMET) 4.1

In June 2013, we released EMET 4.0 and customer response has been fantastic. Many customers across the world now include EMET as part of their defense-in-depth strategy and appreciate how EMET helps businesses prevent attackers from gaining access to computers systems. Today, we’re releasing a ne...

Authenticity and the November 2013 Security Updates

If you haven't had a chance to see the movie Gravity, I highly recommend you take the time to check it out. The plot moves a bit slowly at times, but director Alfonso Cuaron's work portrayal of zero gravity is worth the ticket price alone. Add in stellar acting and you end up with an epic movie...

Security Advisory 2880823: Recommendation to discontinue use of SHA-1

Microsoft is recommending that customers and CA’s stop using SHA-1 for cryptographic applications, including use in SSL/TLS and code signing. Microsoft Security Advisory 2880823 has been released along with the policy announcement that Microsoft will stop recognizing the validity of SHA-1 based...

Security Advisory 2868725: Recommendation to disable RC4

In light of recent research into practical attacks on biases in the RC4 stream cipher, Microsoft is recommending that customers enable TLS1.2 in their services and take steps to retire and deprecate RC4 as used in their TLS implementations. Microsoft recommends TLS1.2 with AES-GCM as a more secur...

Technical details of the targeted attack using IE vulnerability CVE-2013-3918

Over the weekend we became aware of an active attack relying on an unknown remote code execution vulnerability of a legacy ActiveX component used by Internet Explorer. We are releasing this blog to confirm one more time that the code execution vulnerability will be fixed in today’s UpdateTuesday...

Assessing risk for the November 2013 security updates

Today we released eight security bulletins addressing 19 CVE’s. Three bulletins have a maximum severity rating of Critical while the other 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...

ActiveX Control issue being addressed in Update Tuesday

Late last Friday, November 8, 2013, a vulnerability, CVE-2013-3918, affecting an Internet Explorer ActiveX Control was publically disclosed. We have confirmed that this vulnerability is an issue already scheduled to be addressed in “Bulletin 3”, which will be released as MS13-090, as listed in th...

Clarification on Security Advisory 2896666 and the ANS for the November 2013 Security Bulletin Release

Today, we’re providing advance notification for the release of eight bulletins, three Critical and five Important, for November 2013. The Critical updates address vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer and Microsoft Windows, and the Important updates address issues in Windows and Office. While this...

Software defense: safe unlinking and reference count hardening

Object lifetime management vulnerabilities represent a very common class of memory safety vulnerability. These vulnerabilities come in many shapes and sizes, and are typically quite difficult to mitigate generically. Vulnerabilities of this type result commonly from incorrect accounting with...

Microsoft Releases Security Advisory 2896666

Today we released Security Advisory 2896666 regarding an issue that affects customers using Microsoft Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008, Microsoft Office 2003 through 2010, and all supported versions of Microsoft Lync. We are aware of targeted attacks, largely in the Middle East and South Asi...

CVE-2013-3906: a graphics vulnerability exploited through Word documents

Recently we become aware of a vulnerability of a Microsoft graphics component that is actively exploited in targeted attacks using crafted Word documents sent by email. Today we are releasing Security Advisory 2896666 which includes a proactive Fix it workaround for blocking this attack while we...

Bounty Evolution: $100,000 for New Mitigation Bypass Techniques Wanted Dead or Alive

Those who know me personally or follow me on Twitter are familiar with my obsession with karaoke. I do it as often as I can rope people into going with me, never forcing anyone to sing, though invariably everyone does – or at least sings from the sidelines to the songs they know...

Software Defense: mitigating heap corruption vulnerabilities

Heap corruption vulnerabilities are the most common type of vulnerability that Microsoft addresses through security updates today. These vulnerabilities typically occur as a result of programming mistakes that make it possible to write beyond the bounds of a heap buffer a spatial issue or to plac...

Introduction: Chris Betz, new head of MSRC

By way of introduction, I am Chris Betz, the leader of the Microsoft Security Response Center MSRC. I’m stepping in to fill the shoes of Mike Reavey, who has moved on to become the General Manager of Secure Operations, still within Trustworthy Computing. Since joining the MSRC, I’ve spent time...

10 years of Update Tuesdays

On October 1, 2003, Microsoft announced it would move to a monthly security bulletin cadence. Today, marks 10 years since that first monthly security update. We looked at many ways to improve our security preparedness and patch timing was the number one customer request. Your feedback was clear a...

October 2013 Security Bulletin Webcast, Q&A, and Slide Deck

Today we’re publishing the October 2013 Security Bulletin Webcast Questions & Answers page. We fielded 11 questions during the webcast, with specific bulletin questions focusing primarily on the SharePoint MS13-084 and Kernel-Mode Drivers MS13-081 bulletins. There was one additional question that...

Assessing risk for the October 2013 security updates

Today we released eight security bulletins addressing 25 CVE’s. Four bulletins have a maximum severity rating of Critical while the other four have a maximum severity rating of Important. We hope that the table below helps you prioritize the deployment of the updates appropriately for your...

Congratulations to James Forshaw Recipient of Our First $100,000 Bounty for New Mitigation Bypass Techniques!

Congratulations to James Forshaw for coming up with a new exploitation technique to get our first ever $100,000 bounty. A security vulnerability researcher with Context Information Security, James already came in hot with design level bugs he found during the IE11 Preview Bug Bounty, and we’re...

MS13-080 addresses two vulnerabilities under limited, targeted attacks

Today we released MS13-080 which addresses nine CVEs in Internet Explorer. This bulletin fixes multiple security issues, including two critical vulnerabilities that haven been actively exploited in limited targeted attacks, which we will discuss in details in this blog entry. CVE-2013-3893: the...

The October 2013 security updates

This month we release eight bulletins – four Critical and four Important - which address 25 unique CVEs in Microsoft Windows, Internet Explorer, SharePoint, .NET Framework, Office, and Silverlight. For those who need to prioritize their deployment planning, we recommend focusing on MS13-080,...

An update on the bounty programs

Back in June of this year, we announced three new bounty programs that will pay researchers for techniques that bypass built-in OS mitigations and protections, for defenses that stop those bypasses and for vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer 11 Preview. This past Friday, we provided some...

Bounty News Update: Bountiful Harvest

Fall is a season traditionally associated with a harvest after planting the seeds and tending the crops. Today I’m proud to announce the names of six very smart people who have helped us make our products more secure by participating in our new bounty programs. When we launched our bounty program...

Advance Notification Service for October 2013 Security Bulletin Release

Today we’re providing advance notification for the release of eight bulletins, four Critical and four Important, for October 2013. The Critical updates address vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer, .NET Framework and Windows. The Critical update for Internet Explorer will be a cumulative update...

Software Defense: mitigating stack corruption vulnerabilties

Introduction One of the oldest forms of memory safety exploitation is that of stack corruption vulnerabilities, with several early high-profile exploits being of this type. It seems fitting therefore to kick off this Software Defense series by looking at the status of software defense today with...

Software Defense Series: Exploit mitigation and vulnerability detection

Software Defense is a broad topic requiring a multipronged approach including: - the processes and tooling associated with secure development that we try and encapsulate within the Microsoft SDL, - core OS countermeasures that make exploitation of a given vulnerability more difficult for an...

Microsoft Releases Security Advisory 2887505

Today we released Security Advisory 2887505 regarding an issue that affects Internet Explorer. There are only reports of a limited number of targeted attacks specifically directed at Internet Explorer 8 and 9, although the issue could potentially affect all supported versions. This issue could...

CVE-2013-3893: Fix it workaround available

Today, we released a Fix it workaround tool to address a new IE vulnerability that had been actively exploited in extremely limited, targeted attacks. This Fix it makes a minor modification to mshtml.dll when it is loaded in memory to address the vulnerability. This Fix it workaround tool is link...

September 2013 Security Bulletin Webcast, Q&A, and Slide Deck

Today we’re publishing the September 2013 Security Bulletin Webcast Questions & Answers page. The majority of questions focused on Office bulletins, especially SharePoint Server MS13-067. We received multiple Office related questions that were very similar in nature, so the questions have been...

MS13-068: A difficult-to-exploit double free in Outlook

MS13-068 addresses a memory corruption vulnerability accessible by simply previewing a message in the Outlook Preview Pane. As such, we’ve rated this security vulnerability as Critical and we encourage customers to deploy the security update. However, in this case, we believe this particular...

Assessing risk for the September 2013 security updates

Today we released thirteen security bulletins addressing 47 CVE’s. Four bulletins have a maximum severity rating of Critical while the other ten have a maximum severity rating of Important. We hope that the table below helps you prioritize the deployment of the updates appropriately for your...

Lovely tokens and the September 2013 security updates

Helen Hunt Jackson famously wrote, “By all lovely tokens September is here, with summer’s best of weather and autumn’s best of cheer.” I share Helen’s clear adoration for this time of year. As a sports fan, there are so many “lovely tokens” to enjoy. The baseball pennant race is heating up, colle...

Advance Notification Service for September 2013 Security Bulletin Release

In celebration of kids heading back to school, today we’re providing advance notification for the release of 14 bulletins, four Critical and 10 Important, for September 2013. The Critical updates address issues in Internet Explorer, Outlook, SharePoint and Windows. As always, we’ve scheduled the...

August 2013 Security Bulletin Webcast, Q&A, and Slide Deck

Today we’re publishing the August 2013 Security Bulletin Webcast Questions & Answers page. We fielded 13 questions on various topics during the webcast, with specific bulletin questions focusing primarily on Exchange Server MS13-061 and Windows Kernel MS13-063. There were 3 additional questions...

Cryptographic Improvements in Microsoft Windows

You might remember that in June 2013 we released Security Advisory 2854544 announcing additional options for enterprise customers to manage their digital certificate handling configuration on the Windows platform. The particular functionality announced in Security Advisory 2854544 was first built...

Leaving Las Vegas and the August 2013 security updates

Two weeks ago I, along with 7,500 of my closest friends, attended the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas, NV. I can’t speak for everyone, but I certainly had a great – if not exhausting – time while there. While there were a lot of great talks, a personal highlight for me each year is the...

Assessing risk for the August 2013 security updates

Today we released eight security bulletins addressing 23 CVE’s. Three bulletins have a maximum severity rating of Critical while the other 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...

Mitigating the LdrHotPatchRoutine DEP/ASLR bypass with MS13-063

Today we released MS13-063 which includes a defense in depth change to address an exploitation technique that could be used to bypass two important platform mitigations: Address Space Layout Randomization ASLR and Data Execution Prevention DEP. As we’ve described in the past, these mitigations pl...

Advance Notification Service for August 2013 Security Bulletin Release

Today we’re providing advance notification for the release of eight bulletins, three Critical and five Important, for August 2013. The Critical updates address vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows, Internet Explorer and Exchange. As usual, we’ve scheduled the bulletin release for the second Tuesd...

The story of MS13-002: How incorrectly casting fat pointers can make your code explode

C++ supports developers in object-orientated programming and removes from the developer the responsibility of dealing with many object-oriented programming OOP paradigm problems. But these problems do not magically disappear. Rather it is the compiler that aims to provide a solution to many of th...

Try something new – Beat the BlueHat Challenge!

August 2014 Update: The BlueHat Challenge is on hold. We will make an announcement on this blog when we re-start the BlueHat Challenge. Thanks for your interest! --- We were inspired by the Matasano Crypto Challenges. So we built a similar series of fun challenges to exercise reverse engineering,...

Are you prepared for the BlueHat Challenge?

Today we are kicking off a new challenge so you can showcase your security prowess and, if we can, help you build some more. Our BlueHat Challenge is a series of computer security questions, which increase in difficulty as you progress. Only the rare and talented engineer will be able to finish t...

Announcing the 2013 MSRC Progress Report featuring MAPP expansions

Over the years, our customers have come to expect a certain regularity and transparency in both our security updates and the guidance that goes with them. One regular piece of communication about our work is a yearly progress report, which provides a look into the program updates and bulletin...

Preparing for Live Pwnage: Mitigation Bypass Bounty Machine Specs for Black Hat

With about one week to go before we all gather at Black Hat in Las Vegas, we’re getting inquiries about precisely how the promised Live Mitigation Bypass Bounty judging at Black Hat will work. For most of the world, it works best when you get a good spot at the Microsoft booth 301 around noon eac...

Attention Bounty Hunters – The Ramp Up to Black Hat

We’re three weeks into our new world of bounties for Microsoft products now, and as the clock ticks down on one program, we’re prepping for some live excitement with one of the others. First, the Internet Explorer 11 Preview Bounty is entering its final 10 days; the bounty period for that program...

July 2013 Security Bulletin Webcast, Q&A, and Slide Deck

Today we’re publishing the July 2013 Security Bulletin Webcast Questions & Answers page. During the webcast, we fielded 10 questions covering all updates. All questions are included on the Q&A page. We invite our customers to join us for the next scheduled webcast on Wednesday, August 14th at 11...

Running in the wild, not for so long

Over the weekend we received a report from our partners about a possible unpatched Internet Explorer vulnerability being exploited in the wild. The exploit code uses a memory corruption bug triggered from a webpage but it deeply leverages a Flash SWF file in order to achieve reliable exploitation...

Filling A Gap In the Vulnerability Market – First Bounty Notification

When Microsoft decided to offer not one but three new bounties, paying outside researchers directly for security research on some of our latest products, we put a lot of thought into developing those bounty programs. We developed a customized set of programs designed to create a win-win between t...

Assessing risk for the July 2013 security updates

Today we released seven security bulletins addressing 34 CVE’s. Six bulletins have a maximum severity rating of Critical, and one has a maximum severity rating of Important. We hope that the table below helps you prioritize the deployment of the updates appropriately for your environment. Bulleti...

A new policy for store apps and the July 2013 security updates

There are those I’ve met who think my life is something akin to the classic comedy Groundhog Day. No, I don’t wake up to the musical stylings of Sonny and Cher each morning, but month after month after month, the second Tuesday rolls around and I’m involved in releasing security updates...

Advance Notification Service for July 2013 Security Bulletin Release

Today we’re providing advance notification for the release of seven bulletins, six Critical and one Important, for July 2013. The Critical bulletins address vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows, .NET Framework, Silverlight, Internet Explorer and GDI+. Also scheduled for inclusion among these...