Newly discovered "wormable vulnerabilities" in Microsoft Remote Desktop Services need to be taken care of immediately.
Microsoft has released a set of fixes for Remote Desktop Services that include two critical Remote Code Execution (RCE) vulnerabilities.
Like the previously-fixed ‘BlueKeep’ vulnerability, these two vulnerabilities are also ‘wormable,’ meaning that any future malware that exploits these could propagate from vulnerable computer to vulnerable computer without user interaction.
The affected versions of Windows are Windows 7 SP1, Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, Windows Server 2012, Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012 R2, and all supported versions of Windows 10, including server versions.
Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and Windows Server 2008 are not affected, nor is the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) itself affected.
It is important that affected systems are patched as quickly as possible because of the elevated risks associated with wormable vulnerabilities like these, and downloads for these can be found in the Microsoft Security Update Guide. Customers who have automatic updates enabled are automatically protected by these fixes.
For most consumers running Windows 7, Windows 10 Pro or Home versions, the last sentence of the article is the most important bit of information:
ReplyDelete"Customers who have automatic updates enabled are automatically protected by these fixes."
These fixes were included in the August version of regular monthly cumulative typically released for Windows 7 and 10 starting on the second Tuesday of the month. It's part of Microsoft's regular release cycle for these kind of security updates and bug fixes.
So while these fixes are important especially for specialized business versions of Windows that do not use the regular Windows update mechanism, this is not a major cause for alarm for most people and will be handled without any further action on your part.
--Brian