Critical vulnerabilities have been identified in Adobe Reader 9.1.3 and Acrobat 9.1.3, Adobe Reader 8.1.6 and Acrobat 8.1.6 for Windows, Macintosh and UNIX, and Adobe Reader 7.1.3 and Acrobat 7.1.3 for Windows and Macintosh.

These vulnerabilities could cause the application to crash and could potentially allow an attacker to take control of the affected system. This update represents the second quarterly security update for Adobe Reader and Acrobat.

Adobe recommends users of Adobe Reader 9.1.3 and Acrobat 9.1.3 and earlier versions update to Adobe Reader 9.2 and Acrobat 9.2. Adobe recommends users of Acrobat 8.1.6 and earlier versions update to Acrobat 8.1.7, and users of Acrobat 7.1.3 and earlier versions update to Acrobat 7.1.4.

For Adobe Reader users who cannot update to Adobe Reader 9.2, Adobe has provided the Adobe Reader 8.1.7 and Adobe Reader 7.1.4 updates. Updates apply to all platforms: Windows, Macintosh and UNIX.

Affected software versions:

- Adobe Reader 9.1.3 and earlier versions for Windows, Macintosh, and UNIX

- Adobe Acrobat 9.1.3 and earlier versions for Windows and Macintosh

Solution:

- Adobe Reader

Adobe Reader users on Windows can find the appropriate update here:

http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/product.jsp?product=10&platform=Windows

- Acrobat

Acrobat Standard and Pro users on Windows can find the appropriate update here:

http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/product.jsp?product=1&platform=Windows

Acrobat Pro Extended users on Windows can find the appropriate update here:

http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/product.jsp?product=158&platform=Windows

Acrobat 3D users on Windows can find the appropriate update here:

http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/product.jsp?product=112&platform=Windows

Severity Rating:

Adobe categorizes this as a critical update.

NOTE:

There are reports that this issue is being exploited in the wild, via limited, targeted attacks.

This update resolves a memory corruption issue that could potentially lead to code execution.

This update resolves multiple heap overflow vulnerabilities that could potentially lead to code execution.

This update resolves an invalid array index issue that could potentially lead to code execution.

Regards

Marc Liron – Microsoft MVP

Microsoft today released a series of patches to cover security issues in the Windows operating system and Office.

Here are the details on this month’s critical bulletins:

MS09-050 – Vulnerabilities in SMBv2 Could Allow Remote Code Execution (975517)

This security update resolves one publicly disclosed and two privately reported vulnerabilities in Server Message Block Version 2 (SMBv2). The most severe of the vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if an attacker sent a specially crafted SMB packet to a computer running the Server service. Firewall best practices and standard default firewall configurations can help protect networks from attacks that originate from outside the enterprise perimeter. Best practices recommend that systems that are connected to the Internet have a minimal number of ports exposed.

MS09-051 – Vulnerabilities in Windows Media Runtime Could Allow Remote Code Execution (975682)

This security update resolves two privately reported vulnerabilities in Windows Media Runtime. The vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if a user opened a specially crafted media file or received specially crafted streaming content from a Web site or any application that delivers Web content. An attacker who successfully exploited these vulnerabilities could gain the same user rights as the local user. 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.

MS09-052 – Vulnerability in Windows Media Player Could Allow Remote Code Execution (974112)

This security update resolves a privately reported vulnerability in Windows Media Player. The vulnerability could allow remote code execution if a specially crafted ASF file is played using Windows Media Player 6.4. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could gain the same user rights as the local user. 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.

MS09-054 – Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer (974455)

This security update resolves three privately reported vulnerabilities and one publicly disclosed vulnerability in Internet Explorer. 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. Firefox users who are running the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) plug-in and do not have it disabled should also apply this security update. For more information regarding this issue, please see the FAQ section for HTML Component Handling Vulnerability – CVE-2009-2529.

MS09-055 – Cumulative Security Update of ActiveX Kill Bits (973525)

This security update addresses a privately reported vulnerability that is common to multiple ActiveX controls and is currently being exploited. The vulnerability that affects ActiveX controls that were compiled using the vulnerable version of the Microsoft Active Template Library (ATL) could allow remote code execution if a user views a specially crafted Web page with Internet Explorer, instantiating the ActiveX control. 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.

MS09-060 – Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Active Template Library (ATL) ActiveX Controls for Microsoft Office Could Allow Remote Code Execution (973965)

This security update resolves several privately reported vulnerabilities in ActiveX Controls for Microsoft Office that were compiled with a vulnerable version of Microsoft Active Template Library (ATL). The vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if a user loaded a specially crafted component or control. 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.

MS09-061 – Vulnerabilities in the Microsoft .NET Common Language Runtime Could Allow Remote Code Execution (974378)

This security update resolves three privately reported vulnerabilities in Microsoft .NET Framework and Microsoft Silverlight. The vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution on a client system if a user views a specially crafted Web page using a Web browser that can run XAML Browser Applications (XBAPs) or Silverlight applications, or if an attacker succeeds in persuading a user to run a specially crafted Microsoft .NET application. 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. The vulnerabilities could also allow remote code execution on a server system running IIS, if that server allows processing ASP.NET pages and an attacker succeeds in uploading a specially crafted ASP.NET page to that server and executing it, as could be the case in a Web hosting scenario. Microsoft .NET applications, Silverlight applications, XBAPs and ASP.NET pages that are not malicious are not at risk of being compromised because of this vulnerability.

MS09-062 – Vulnerabilities in GDI+ Could Allow Remote Code Execution (957488)

This security update resolves several privately reported vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows GDI+. These vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if a user viewed a specially crafted image file using affected software or browsed a Web site that contains specially crafted content. 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.

MS09-053 – Vulnerabilities in FTP Service for Internet Information Services Could Allow Remote Code Execution (975254)

This security update resolves two publicly disclosed vulnerabilities in the FTP Service in Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) 5.0, Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) 5.1, Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) 6.0, and Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) 7.0. On IIS 7.0, only FTP Service 6.0 is affected. The vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution (RCE) on systems running FTP Service on IIS 5.0, or denial of service (DoS) on systems running FTP Service on IIS 5.0, IIS 5.1, IIS 6.0 or IIS 7.0.

MS09-056 – Vulnerabilities in Windows CryptoAPI Could Allow Spoofing (974571)

This security update resolves two publicly disclosed vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows. The vulnerabilities could allow spoofing if an attacker gains access to the certificate used by the end user for authentication.

MS09-057 – Vulnerability in Indexing Service Could Allow Remote Code Execution (969059)

This security update resolves a privately reported vulnerability in Microsoft Windows. The vulnerability could allow remote code execution if an attacker set up a malicious Web page that invokes the Indexing Service through a call to its ActiveX component. This call could include a malicious URL and exploit the vulnerability, granting the attacker access to the client system with the privileges of the user browsing the Web page. 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.

MS09-058 -  Vulnerabilities in Windows Kernel Could Allow Elevation of Privilege (971486)

This security update resolves several privately reported vulnerabilities in the Windows kernel. The most severe of the vulnerabilities could allow elevation of privilege if an attacker logged on to the system and ran a specially crafted application. An attacker must have valid logon credentials and be able to log on locally to exploit any of these vulnerabilities. The vulnerabilities could not be exploited remotely or by anonymous users.

MS09-059 – Vulnerability in Local Security Authority Subsystem Service Could Allow Denial of Service (975467)

This security update resolves a privately reported vulnerability in Microsoft Windows. The vulnerability could allow denial of service if an attacker sent a maliciously crafted packet during the NTLM authentication process.

If your PC is not already set to automatically download and install the updates from the Microsoft Update service you can perform the task manually here.

Kind Regards

Marc Liron – Microsoft MVP

FBI Director Robert Mueller tells how he almost fell for a phishing scam.

The lesson here is NEVER click on emails sent to you from a bank or any other financial organization. Open up your Internet Explorer 8 and manually type in the URL to go to the website. If the email was claiming you needed to reset your password etc. PHONE your bank and ask them if they actually sent the email – I’ll bet they did not. Banks WRITE to you about these things!

Make sure you have an upto date antispyware/anti-virus solution on the PC such as :

http://www.updatexp.com/spyware-doctor-antivirus.html

.

Regards

Marc Liron – Microsoft MVP

.