Microsoft Patch Tuesday February 2024: 73 vulnerabilities fixed

Yesterday, Microsoft released Patch Tuesday February 2024 bringing fixes for 73 vulnerabilities. Two of them are zero-days that are used in attacks.

The company has rated five of the vulnerabilities "critical," as they allow denial of service attacks, remote code execution, information disclosure, and elevation of privilege.

In the list below, you can find the types of vulnerabilities that are being fixed this month:

• 30 vulnerabilities that allow remote code execution
• 16 vulnerabilities that allow privilege escalation
• 10 vulnerabilities that allow spoofing attacks
• 9 vulnerabilities that allow Denial of Service attacks
• 5 vulnerabilities that allow information disclosure
• 3 vulnerabilities that allow bypassing security features

Not including the 6 Microsoft Edge fixed on February 8th.

See also: CISA: Adds Chrome vulnerability to KEV List

Microsoft Patch Tuesday February 2024: Zero-day vulnerabilities

As we mentioned earlier, this month's Patch Tuesday fixes two zero-day that are actively being used in attacks.

CVE-2024-21351: Vulnerability that bypasses the security features of Windows SmartScreen

Microsoft has fixed a vulnerability in Windows SmartScreenthat could allow attackers to bypass SmartScreen security checks.

“A licensed attacker would have to send the user a malicious file and convince them to open it,” Microsoft explains.

Successful exploitation of the vulnerability allows bypassing SmartScreen.

It is not known how the flaw was abused in attacks or by which threat actor since Microsoft has not provided details on how the flaw was exploited in attacks.

The vulnerability was discovered and reported by Microsoft's Eric Lawrence

See also: New vulnerabilities in Cisco, Fortinet, VMware require immediate updates

CVE-2024-21412 – Internet Shortcut Files vulnerability that bypasses security features

The second zero-day vulnerability that Microsoft's February Patch Tuesday fixes is an Internet Shortcut File flaw, which could bypass Mark of the Web (MoTW) warnings in Windows.

“An unauthorized attacker could send the targeted user a specially crafted file that is designed to bypass the displayed security check,” Microsoft explains. However, the attacker would have to convince the user to take action by clicking on the link to the file.

Peter Girnus (gothburz) of Trend Micro discovered and reported the bug. In report , he explains how the DarkCasino team used the vulnerability in a hacking campaign.

According to Microsoft, other researchers also discovered this flaw (e.g., dwbzn from Aura Information Security and Dima Lenz and Vlad Stolyarov of the Google Threat Analysis Team).

See also: New vulnerabilities in Azure HDInsight Spark, Kafka, and Hadoop services

Microsoft Patch Tuesday February 2024: All vulnerabilities

In the table below, you can see in detail all the vulnerabilities that Microsoft is fixing this month:

Microsoft Patch Tuesday is a practice followed by Microsoft, where on the second Tuesday of each month it releases updates and fixes for its operating systems , programs, and applications. These updates typically include security fixes, performance improvements, and new features.

The purpose of Microsoft Patch Tuesday is to provide Microsoft users with the best possible user experience by fixing issues and ensuring the security of their systems. Microsoft Patch Tuesday is important for several reasons. First, security updates help protect systems from security vulnerabilities and malware. These updates fix known security issues and strengthen the resilience of systems against attacks.

Source: www.bleepingcomputer.com