Microsoft Releases July 2019 Security Updates, 2 Flaws Under Active Attack

The July 2019 security
updates^[1] include patches for
various supported versions of Windows operating systems and other
Microsoft products, including Internet Explorer, Edge, Office,
Azure DevOps, Open Source Software, .NET Framework, Azure, SQL
Server, ASP.NET, Visual Studio, and Exchange Server.

Details of 6 security vulnerabilities, all rated important, were
made public before a patch was released, none of which were found
being exploited in the wild.

However, two new privilege escalation vulnerabilities, one affects
all supported versions of the Windows operating system, and the
other affects Windows 7 and Server 2008, have been reported as
being actively exploited in the wild.

Both actively exploited vulnerabilities lead to elevation of
privilege, one (CVE-2019-1132) of which resides in the Win32k
component and could allow an attacker to run arbitrary code in
kernel mode.

However, the other actively exploited vulnerability
(CVE-2019-0880) resides in the way splwow64 (Thunking Spooler APIs)
handles certain calls, allowing an attacker or a malicious program
to elevate its privileges on an affected system from low-integrity
to medium-integrity.

The publicly known flaws affect Docker runtime, SymCrypt Windows
cryptographic library, Remote Desktop Services, Azure Automation,
Microsoft SQL server, and Windows AppX Deployment Service
(AppXSVC).

Microsoft also released updates to patch 14 critical
vulnerabilities, and as expected, all of them lead to remote code
execution attacks and affect Microsoft products ranging from
Internet Explorer and Edge to Windows Server DHCP, Azure DevOps and
Team Foundation Servers.

Some important-rated vulnerabilities also lead to remote code
execution attacks, while others allow elevation of privilege,
information disclosure, cross-site scripting (XSS), security
feature bypass, spoofing, and denial of service attacks.

Users and system administrators are strongly advised to apply
the latest Microsoft security patches as soon as possible to keep
hackers and cyber criminals away from taking control of their
Windows computer systems.

For installing the latest security updates, users can head on to
Settings → Update & Security → Windows Update → Check for updates
on their Windows computers or can install the updates manually.

For addressing problematic updates on Windows 10 devices,
Microsoft also introduced a safety measure in March this year that
automatically uninstalls buggy
software updates^[2]
installed on your system if your OS detects a startup failure.