It’s been a while since I’ve talked about Clickjacking, with only a few exceptions here and there. Mostly because I haven’t seen it much in the wild - at least not yet. But there’s still a lot of research out there to be done. I got an interesting email the other day that talked about a way to use parameter pollution (or a mix of URL parameters and POST) to create a condition where you can defeat CSRF tokens:

The technique, found by Lava Kuppan describes a scenario where a mix of CSRF, parameter pollution and Clickjacking can defeat CSRF tokens in JSP and (sometimes) in ASP.NET. It’s worth a read. I did briefly mention using CSRF to pre-populate fields that may be necessary to create a Clickjacking scenario during Jeremiah and my brief talk at the world OWASP in New York. But this takes it to a new level, where you can pre-load information in such a way that it will actually defeat the application logic in the process. Anyway, cool stuff by Lava.

Today we are releasing two Important security bulletins addressing eight vulnerabilities in Windows and Microsoft Office. Both bulletins have an aggregate Exploitability Index rating of “1” so we recommend that customers deploy these updates as soon as possible. The Microsoft Exploitability Index provides additional information to help customers prioritize deployment of monthly security bulletins. A summary of today’s security updates can be found on the Microsoft Security Bulletin webpage.

MS10-016 addresses one vulnerability in Windows Movie Maker. Both Windows XP and Windows Vista ship with affected versions (2.1 and 6.0 respectively). Version 2.6 is also vulnerable and can be freely downloaded and installed from the web. Customers who install 2.6 on any supported platform, including Windows 7, will be offered the update. In order to take advantage of the vulnerability, a user would need to open a specially crafted Movie Maker project file. These are files with the .mswmm file extension.

The MS10-016 bulletin also calls out Microsoft Producer 2003 in the affected products list. Producer 2003 is a free download with limited distribution. At this time, we are not offering an update for Producer 2003. Our standard approach is to produce updates that can be deployed automatically for all affected products at the same time but Producer 2003 does not offer a means for automatic update. Based on our investigation, we determined that the best way to protect the vast majority of customers was to release an update addressing the components that shipped with Windows. While we continue to investigate Producer 2003, we recommend that customers either uninstall the application or apply an available Microsoft Fix It to disassociate the project file type from the application to add an extra layer of security.

MS10-017 affects all currently supported versions of Microsoft Office Excel. It also affects Office 2004 and Office 2008 for Mac, the Open XML File Format Converter for Mac, supported versions of Excel viewer and SharePoint 2007. As with most Office vulnerabilities, a user would have to open a specially crafted file in order to be exploited.

Since both of today’s bulletins require user interaction, we give them both a “2” on our deployment priority scale:

Our Severity and Exploitability Index slide offers additional guidance to help customers prioritize this month’s bulletins:

In the following video, Adrian Stone and I give a brief overview of today’s bulletins:

More listening and viewing options: Windows Media Video (WMV) Windows Media Audio (WMA) iPod Video (MP4) MP3 Audio High Quality WMV (2.5 Mbps) Zune Video (WMV)

Today we also re-released MS09-033 to add Virtual Server 2005 to the affected products list. Customers who have already installed the update for affected products do not have any additional actions.

Additionally, we continue to to monitor the threat landscape around Security Advisory 981169 regarding a vulnerability in VBScript that could allow remote code execution. We are not currently aware of any active attacks but encourage customers to review the advisory and apply the suggested workarounds where possible. Customers that are running Windows 7, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, and Windows Vista are not affected.

Please join us tomorrow for a public webcast where Adrian Stone and I will go in to detail on these bulletins and answer customer questions with the help of the engineers who worked to produce them so please plan to join us.

Date: Wednesday, March 10
Time: 11:00 a.m. PST (UTC -8)
Registration: http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032427711

Thanks!

Jerry Bryant
Sr. Security Communications Manager Lead

*This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.*

Hi everyone,

Today we released Security Advisory 981374 addressing a publicly disclosed vulnerability in Internet Explorer 6 and Internet Explorer 7. Internet Explorer 8 is not affected by this issue. Customers using Internet Explorer 6 or 7 should upgrade to Internet Explorer 8 immediately to benefit from the improved security features and defense in depth protections. Additionally, Internet Explorer 5.01 on Windows 2000 is not affected.

At this time, we are aware of targeted attacks seeking to exploit this vulnerability against Internet Explorer 6. Internet Explorer Protected Mode in Internet Explorer 7 running on Windows Vista helps to mitigate the impact of this issue. Additionally, Internet Explorer on Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008 runs in a restricted mode that is known as Enhanced Security Configuration. This mode sets the security level for the Internet zone to High. This is a mitigating factor for Web sites that you have not added to the Internet Explorer Trusted sites zone. Please review the Security Advisory for additional workarounds which include modifying the Access Control List (ACL) on iepeers.dll (the affected component), setting the Internet and local Intranet security zones to "high", configuring Internet Explorer to prompt before running Active Scripting, and enabling Data Execution Prevention (DEP) where possible which makes it difficult to successfully exploit the vulnerability.

As always, we are investigating this issue and will take appropriate action to protect customers when we have finalized a solution. This may include providing a solution through our monthly security update release process, or an out-of-cycle security update, depending on customer needs.

Anyone believed to have been affected can visit: http://www.microsoft.com/protect/support/default.mspx and should contact the national law enforcement agency in their country. Those in the United States can contact Customer Service and Support at no charge using the PC Safety hotline at 1-866-727-2338 (PCSAFETY).  Additionally, customers in the United States should contact their local FBI office or report their situation at: www.ic3.gov. Customers should follow the guidance in the advisory and our Protect Your PC guidance of enabling a firewall, getting software updates, and installing antivirus software (learn more by visiting the Protect Your PC web site). International customers can find their Regional Customer Service Representative http://support.microsoft.com/common/international.aspx.

We are also working with our Microsoft Active Protections Program (MAPP), the Microsoft Security Response Alliance (MSRA), authorities and other industry partners to help provide broader protections for customers. Together with our partners, we will continue to monitor the threat landscape and will take action against any web sites that seek to exploit this vulnerability.

The Security Advisory will be updated with any new developments so if you are not already subscribed to our comprehensive alerts, please do so in order to be alerted by email when new information is added.

Please review the advisory for additional details and if the situation changes, we will provide an update here on the MSRC blog.

Jerry Bryant
Sr. Security Communications Manager Lead

*This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.*