Adobe Releases Out of Band Zero Day Update

Earlier today Adobe released an out of band (un-scheduled) update for Flash Player to resolve 2x critical CVEs (defined) and 2x Important CVEs. One of these designated CVE-2018-5002 is a zero day (defined) vulnerability under active attack which originate from Microsoft Office documents with embedded Flash content. The exploits are said to trigger with little to no user interaction.

While Adobe confirmed the attacks are limited and targeted in nature, they are thought to target users in the Middle East.

This Flash Player update also adds a dialog box which prompts user when viewing an Office document if they wish to load Flash Player content.

If you use Adobe Flash Player, please install the update as soon as possible using the steps provided within Adobe’s security bulletin. Google and Microsoft will make available updates for their browsers very shortly.

Thank you.

June 2018 Update Summary

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Update: 12th June 2018:
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As scheduled Microsoft released their monthly security updates earlier today resolving 50 vulnerabilities. Further details are available within their Security Updates Guide.

In addition; there are 5 knowledge base articles detailing potential issues (all of which are pending resolutions) you may experience upon installing these updates. They are listed below for your reference:

4284819
4284835
4284826
4284867
4284880

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Adobe have not released any further updates since their out of band (un-scheduled) update last week.

As always; you can monitor the availability of security updates for most your software from the following websites (among others) or use one of the utilities presented on this page.
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US Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT) (please see the “Information on Security Updates” heading of the “Protecting Your PC” page):

https://www.us-cert.gov/

A further useful source of update related information is the Calendar of Updates. News/announcements of updates in the categories of General Software, Security Software and Utilities are available on their website. The news/announcements are very timely and (almost always) contain useful direct download links as well as the changes/improvements made by those updates (where possible).

If you like and use it, please also consider supporting that entirely volunteer run website by donating.

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For this month’s Microsoft updates, I will prioritize the order of installation below. A useful list of all CVEs for this month is present here courtesy of BleepingComputer:
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CVE-2018-8267 | Scripting Engine Memory Corruption Vulnerability (a zero day (defined) vulnerability disclosed last month)

Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer (similar to many other months; multiple versions of Edge and IE affected with many of the CVEs affecting the Microsoft Scripting Engine))

CVE-2018-8225 | Windows DNSAPI Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

CVE-2018-8231 | HTTP Protocol Stack Remote Code Execution Vulnerability (especially if your server hosts a Microsoft IIS installation)

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Please install the remaining updates at your earliest convenience.

As usual; I would recommend backing up the data on any device for which you are installing updates to prevent data loss in the rare event that any update causes unexpected issues. I have provided further details of updates available for other commonly used applications below.

Thank you.

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Original Post:
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I usually write this post on or very shortly after Update Tuesday (the second Tuesday) of the month but with an Adobe Flash zero day vulnerability (defined) already patched and given that Mozilla have also released an update this month; I felt an earlier post would be appropriate.

I’ll update this post as further updates are made available. Thank you.

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Mozilla Firefox:
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Early in June Mozilla made available security updates for Firefox and Firefox ESR (Extended Support Release):

6th June: Firefox 60.0.2 and Firefox ESR 52.8.1 and Firefox ESR 60.0.2: Resolves 1x high CVE (defined). This was a heap buffer overflow.

Further details of the security issues resolved by these updates are available in the link above. Details of how to install updates for Firefox are here. If Firefox is your web browser of choice, if you have not already done so, please update it as soon as possible to resolve these security issues.

In the final week of June Mozilla made available security updates for Firefox and Firefox ESR (Extended Support Release):

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26th June:
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Firefox 61: Resolves 6x critical CVEs (defined), 5x high CVEs, 6x moderate CVEs, 1x low CVE

Firefox ESR 60.1: Resolves 5x critical CVEs, 4x high CVEs and 6x moderate CVEs.

Firefox ESR 52.9: Resolves 2x critical CVEs, 4x high CVEs, 3x moderate CVEs.

Further details of the security issues resolved by these updates are available in the links above. Details of how to install updates for Firefox are here. If Firefox is your web browser of choice, if you have not already done so, please update it as soon as possible to resolve these security issues.
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Update: 19th June
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Apple Security Updates: Update: 19th June
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Following Apple’s release of security updates in the final days of May; they have made available further updates detailed below:

macOS High Sierra 10.13.5, Security Update 2018-003 Sierra, Security Update 2018-003 El Capitan: Resolves 39x CVEs (defined)

Safari 11.1.1: Resolves 14x CVEs

Apple iCloud for Windows (version 7.5): Resolves 17x CVEs

Apple Xcode version 9.4.1: Resolves 2x CVEs

Apple SwiftNIO 1.8.0: Resolves 1 CVE (For your reference: What is Apple SwiftNIO?)

As always; further details of these updates are available on Apple’s dedicated security updates page.

For advice on how to install updates for Apple devices, please see the steps detailed at the end of this Sophos blog post as well as this link (from my “Protecting Your PC” page).

Please find below summaries of other notable updates released this month.

Thank you.

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F-Secure Security Products:
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As mentioned in a previous post; 7-Zip has been updated to version 18.05 to resolve a vulnerability in it’s RAR packing code. The F-Secure products listed in this security advisory utilise this 7-Zip DLL (defined) and are thus being updated for the same reason.

If you use these F-Secure products, please install this critical update as soon as possible.

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Google Chrome:
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Google released Google Chrome version 67.0.3396.87 to address 1 vulnerability.

Google Chrome updates automatically and will apply the update the next time Chrome is closed and then re-opened. Chrome can also be updated immediately by clicking the Options button (it looks like 3 stacked small horizontal lines, sometimes called a “hamburger” button) in the upper right corner of the window and choosing “About Google Chrome” from the menu. Follow the prompt to Re-launch Chrome for the updates to take effect.

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VMware
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VMWare issued updates for the following products on the 11th and 28th of June to address 1 and 3 vulnerabilities respectively:

11th June:

• VMware AirWatch Agent for Android (A/W Agent)
• VMware AirWatch Agent for Windows Mobile (A/W Agent)

26th June:

• VMware vSphere ESXi (ESXi)
• VMware Workstation Pro / Player (Workstation)
• VMware Fusion Pro, Fusion (Fusion)

Please review the above linked to security advisories and apply the necessary updates if you use these products.

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OpenSSL
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On the 12th of June; the OpenSSL Foundation issued updates for OpenSSL to address 1x low security vulnerability detailed in this security advisory. To resolve this please update your OpenSSL installations to 1.1.0i or 1.0.2p (as appropriate).

FTP mirrors to obtain the necessary downloads are available from here.

Downloadable Tarballs (compressed/packaged code made for distribution) are available from here.

It should also be possible to use the package manager of a Linux/Unix operating system to update your OpenSSL installation as mentioned within the section titled “Installing updates for Linux distributions” on the “Protecting Your PC” page of this blog.

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Intel Lazy Floating Point Vulnerability:
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Please see my separate post for details.

Blog Post Shout Out: Security Advice for Summer Holidays/Travel

With the Summer holiday season approaching I wanted to provide a respectful shout out to the following security tips/articles while travelling. Even when we are out of the office and our homes; we should maintain vigilance to stay secure and safe.

Many of these tips you may already be using and many of them are simple to use but can make a real difference to ensure your time away runs smoothly and with no unwanted surprises when you return back home:

Tips such as being mindful before using a public charging station I have discussed before but these series of tips group them together for ease of use and convenience.

Some of the most important tips are:

• Ensuring your portable devices are encrypted
• Portable devise are carried with you or safely locked away
• Ensure you changes passwords (from a system you own) after you have used a publically available computer
• Enabling two factor authentication (more on this below)
• Not making it obvious you have expensive devices with you (the tips from the US CERT below will clarify this advice)

Securing Mobile Devices During Summer Travel: US CERT
Holiday Traveling with Personal Internet-Enabled Devices: US CERT
Protecting Portable Devices: Physical Security: US CERT
International Mobile Safety Tips: US CERT
Cybersecurity for Electronic Devices: US CERT

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How to set up 2FA on eBay – go do it now!: Sophos Naked Security blog: by Maria Varmazis
Enabling 2FA for any online account is a great security measure and will be particularly useful when travelling to provide that every layer of security.
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How digital spring cleaning can protect your personal information: WMBF News: Christina Lob
Digital spring cleaning involves (among other steps) removing apps from your smartphones/tablets/computer systems that you don’t use. This enhances security since there will be less for attackers to target in terms of software vulnerabilities (reduced attack surface (defined) and the personal information these apps may store or provide access to. It will make it easier for you to maintain the device while travelling since there will fewer apps to update and the device will have more free space should you need it.

When you are back home; this spring cleaning advices further steps e.g. regularly checking your bank account and credit cards for signs of unusual or unknown transactions and reporting them as soon as possible. This is a good practice just in case any of your cards were unknowingly compromised while abroad.

For the final tips this article describes; I wanted to provide clarification:

Clearing out email inboxes is a good idea but will only enhance security if your account was compromised or you are being shoulder surfed by those around you; if you are following password and email best practices this shouldn’t happen.

Its advice on passwords could be better (this advice from Sophos is more secure) and emptying recycle bins while useful doesn’t truly delete data beyond recovery.

Thank you.