Microsoft Patch Tuesday Roundup - July 2010 - "Jedi Mind Trick Edition"
by Paul Asadoorian on July 15, 2010
Which Vulnerabilities Are You Looking For?
When Microsoft releases their patches each month, I find it interesting to review the criticality of each vulnerability. Microsoft has, in their typical fashion, used some very interesting wording to describe the latest batch of vulnerabilities. When reading each security bulletin, I try to imagine the worst-case scenario and look at the glass as half empty. Microsoft seems to paint a picture and believes the glass to be half full by using phrases such as:
In MS10-042: "The vulnerability cannot be exploited automatically through e-mail." - I believe what they are stating here is that the user can't just open up an email to have the exploit trigger. Instead, the user has to either open an attachment or click on a link. I can tell you from first-hand experience that it’s not difficult to get someone to click on a link. Typically, you just need to tell them that they've qualified for a free iPad. Getting the user to open an attachment is a little bit trickier, and usually requires more research about the target audience and/or organization. However, this does not mean the attack can't scale to trick thousands of people, as did an email appearing to come from the World Cup with an Excel document attached. The Excel document posed as a schedule for the World Cup, but really contained malware that attempted to infect the end-user's computer.