PDF Zero Day Vulnerability in the Wild

From sources all over the internet, Adobe made a sent out a Security bulletin yesterday:

APSA09-01 (Buffer overflow issue in versions 9.0 and earlier of Adobe Reader and Acrobat)

[ad#ad2-right]A critical vulnerability has been identified in Adobe Reader 9 and Acrobat 9 and earlier versions. This vulnerability would cause the application to crash and could potentially allow an attacker to take control of the affected system. There are reports that this issue is being exploited.

Adobe Plans on patching this March 11, 2009

and According to some other reports are saying:

Symantec Security Response has received several PDF files that actively exploit a vulnerability in Adobe Reader. We are continuing to remain in contact with Adobe on this vulnerability in order to ensure the security of our mutual customers.

[via Symantec]

With PDF files being used all over the business world, this will create undo problems with the IT Field.  This also could be used to make Botnets and make the network involved become sluggish.   It must be warned that there are a whole wide variety of possibilities that could be done with this exploit.  Shadowserver Foundation recommends disabling the Javascript in your Adobe Reader.  Until the patch comes out you will need to be careful on what you open up and possibly check each and every PDF with an Anti-virus.  This should help minimize the likely hood of getting a virus or Trojan, but is not going to be a 100%.  The only way you can prevent a 100% right now is not to use PDFS until they have Fixed this problem.

Offline Update 5.0, Clone of Autopatcher to Some!!

Offline updater 5.0 has been released a couple months ago and I just realized it now.  This is an excellent tool for IT professionals who want to keep all your Systems up-to-date with the last patches from Microsoft.  The systems it supports are Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 x64, And Windows Vista / Server 2008.(32 bit and 64 Bit updates).

ct-offline-update50

[ad#ad2-right]I find this a very useful program for people who have a multitude of problems, from not being able to get on the net to computer virus infections.  This is really good for big businesses that want to update a lot of systems in easy way without having to wait for downloads of updates to install.   You can take a DVD and update on the fly within Mins.   DVD being Cheap or buying them in bulk helps saves time and money for the company.   Less time spent downloading the updates and more time actually getting work done.  As with the Conflicker, Downadup, and to some the Conflickr Trojan, if you got infected with that little worm.  This would help install the updates that it prevented you from doing in the first place.  I also found that once you download do the update the files are kept on the hard drive so you no longer have to redownload them again.  You just update the updates every second Tuesday of the month and it downloads the newest patches and creates a whole new ISO for you to burn.

Q: How can I create the offline update CD images automate, for example via a “scheduled job”?
A: Create a new batch file in the “cmd”, eg “DownloadUpdatesAndCreateISOImage.cmd”. Add the desired calls of

“DownloadUpdates.cmd” and “CreateISOImage.cmd” with the necessary parameters in this new file. The file might for

example have the following contents:

@ echo off
call WXP download updates eng
call CreateISOImage WXP eng

Then set a “time-controlled contract” for the new script “DownloadUpdatesAndCreateISOImage.cmd” to your desired

time. For example, after each Microsoft Patchday create new images, select every second Wednesday of the month.

[Via The FAQ’s Documentation (Translated Via Google)]

As you can see you can have it do a script and be ready for you in the morning.  You then just take it out of the drive and install where you need to install the day after the updates are issued. On another Note if you have clients who use Windows office Xp, 2000, 2003, 2007 then this will also help:

ct-offline-update50-1

This is nice if you have clients who use the Microsoft Office Suites also.  Some Malware will often try to infect people’s systems through a office script or some other vector.   So this will also prevent infections or hackers from getting onto the system by updating this also.  You can have this added to each and every DVD ISO you make to include these as you update the patches also.

Download:

Fix Shutdown Problems in Vista!

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In the Patch Tuesday update, Microsoft quietly released the patch to fix Windows Vista machine shut problems. This patch should of came sooner.

KB957388

Update for Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista

Install this update to resolve a set of known application compatibility issues with Windows Server 2008. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer.

This was not a critical update and it seems to resolve so many issues with compatibility.  One thing it seemed to fix on my system has been the shutdown time.  It is now quite fast, it would normally take me 2 to 3 mins to shutdown, now it does it in less than a Minute.   So if you’ve not installed this update please install it soon.   I would like to know if people are seeing the same thing I am.   I’ve found a great resource on fixing it if you are still having problem, it talks about how to check your system performance. Although this is been doing it lately with these programs not loaded or even running, they still seem to cause problems so now I get the feeling it has to do with legacy programs.  This should fix most of the problem with older programs.

The Important Windows patches Released Today

As many of you know we talked about the Non-critical patches that Microsoft will release today.  IF you want to read those please go and check it out.   I’ll be talking about the REALLY important ones that Microsoft has kept tight until now.    These are the more important ones but I will list the ones that I previous talked about to better help people recognize the non-important ones:

[ad#ad2-right]

  • KB955839
  • KB957388
  • KB890830
  • KB905866
  • These are just the tip of the iceberg. although this list are not A lot.  I’d wanted to let people know about what people coin “Exploit Wednesday“.  I really don’t know if this is a Myth or actually does exist but I’d figure we discuss the problems associated with installing the critical updates and try to tell you which ones should be installed As soon as possible.  Though people have in the past used a Virtual Machine to see if there is any problem, that should be your first step if you don’t want to have any problems with these updates.  I don’t suggest testing it more than a couple days.  Here are some good Virtual Machine software to try out yourself:

    Here is the list of updates that are critical that Microsoft released today.   Each one of these are quite important and should be considered installed when you get a chance.

    [ad#ad2-left]Microsoft Security Bulletin MS08-073 – Critical
    Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer (KB958215)

    This security update resolves four privately reported vulnerabilities. The vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if a user views a specially crafted Web page using Internet Explorer. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights.

    Microsoft Security Bulletin MS08-071 – Critical
    Vulnerabilities in GDI Could Allow Remote Code Execution (KB956802)

    This security update resolves two privately reported vulnerabilities in GDI. Exploitation of either of these vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if a user opens a specially crafted WMF image file. An attacker who successfully exploited these vulnerabilities could take complete control of an affected system. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights.

    [ad#ad2-right]Microsoft Security Bulletin MS08-075 – Critical
    Vulnerabilities in Windows Search Could Allow Remote Code Execution (KB959349)

    This security update resolves two privately reported vulnerabilities in Windows Search. These vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if a user opens and saves a specially crafted saved-search file within Windows Explorer or if a user clicks a specially crafted search URL. An attacker who successfully exploited these vulnerabilities could take complete control of an affected system. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights.

    KB952069
    (not quite sure what this one is, when I go do a Google search this is what pops up. It was in German but Google translated it for me)

    In the Windows Media Runtime to the default in Windows XP SP3 contains Windows Media Player (WMP) 9 were discovered vulnerabilities that could allow an attacker to compromise your Windows-based system and gain control over it. See Security Bulletin MS08-076 ( englisch bzw. deutsch ) See Security Bulletin MS08-076 (English or German)

    These are just ones that I found and wanted to let you know, the others have been explained on the other article.  So check them all out and I suggest installing them quickly as possible.