Microsoft released its monthly security update Tuesday, disclosing 64 vulnerabilities across the company’s hardware and software line, a sharp decline from the record number of issues Microsoft disclosed last month.
September's security update features five critical vulnerabilities, 10 fewer than were included in last month’s Patch Tuesday. There are two moderate-severity vulnerabilities in this release and a low-security issue that’s already been patched as a part of a recent Google Chromium update. The remainder is considered “important.”
The most serious vulnerability exists in several versions of Windows Server and Windows 10 that could allow an attacker to gain the ability to execute remote code (RCE) by sending a singular, specially crafted IPv6 packet to a Windows node where IPSec is enabled. CVE-2022-34718 only affects instances that have IPSec enabled. This vulnerability has a severity score of 9.8 out of 10 and is considered “more likely” to be exploited by Microsoft.
Microsoft disclosed one vulnerability that's being actively exploited in the wild — CVE-2022-37969. Microsoft's advisory states this vulnerability is already circulating in the wild and could allow an attacker to gain SYSTEM-level privileges by exploiting the Windows Common Log File System Driver. The adversary must first have the access to the targeted system and then run specific code, though no user interaction is required.
CVE-2022-34721 and CVE-2022-34722 also have severity scores of 9.8, though they are “less likely” to be exploited, according to Microsoft. These are remote code execution vulnerabilities in the Windows Internet Key Exchange protocol that could be triggered if an attacker sends a specially crafted IP packet.
Two other critical vulnerabilities, CVE-2022-35805 and CVE-2022-34700 exist in on-premises instances of Microsoft Dynamics 365. An authenticated attacker could exploit these vulnerabilities to run a specially crafted trusted solution package and execute arbitrary SQL commands. The attacker could escalate their privileges further and execute commands as the database owner.
Talos would also like to highlight five important vulnerabilities that Microsoft considers to be “more likely” to be exploited:
- CVE-2022-37957 — Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability
- CVE-2022-35803 — Windows Common Log File System Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability
- CVE-2022-37954 — DirectX Graphics Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability
- CVE-2022-34725 — Windows ALPC Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability
- CVE-2022-34729 — Windows GDI Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability
A complete list of all the vulnerabilities Microsoft disclosed this month is available on its update page.
In response to these vulnerability disclosures, Talos is releasing a new Snort rule set that detects attempts to exploit some of them. Please note that additional rules may be released at a future date and current rules are subject to change pending additional information. Cisco Secure Firewall customers should use the latest update to their ruleset by updating their SRU. Open-source Snort Subscriber Rule Set customers can stay up to date by downloading the latest rule pack available for purchase on Snort.org.
The rules included in this release that protect against the exploitation of many of these vulnerabilities are 60546, 60547, 60549, 60550 and 60552 - 60554. We've also released Snort 3 rules 300266 - 300270.