Patch Tuesday: Adobe outdoes Microsoft, swats 18 bugs in latest update
Administrators and end users are being advised to update their systems following a set of Patch Tuesday releases from Microsoft and Adobe, which address more than 30 security flaws combined.
Adobe said that its monthly update will include patches for its Flash, Reader, and Acrobat platforms, as well as an update for Illustrator. In total, the update will remedy 18 common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVE) security flaws.
Six of the flaws are addressed in an update for the Windows, Linux, and OS X versions of Flash Player and Air SDK. The company said that the update includes fixes for critical flaws that could allow remote code execution, and updating Flash Player should be a top priority for users and administrators.
Adobe credited the discovery of four of the flaws to Contextis reseacher James Forshaw. Researchers with Keen Team and Team 509 via HP Zero Day Initiative (ZDI) received credit for unearthing another flaw, while Masato Kinugawa was credited with discovery of one vulnerability.
Reader and Acrobat will receive a total of eleven fixes, including remote code execution flaws for both OS X and Windows software, which the company recommends administrators make a top deployment priority alongside the Flash Player updates.
Researchers credited with discovering those flaws include VUPEN (via HP ZDI), Ukatemi's Gábor Molnár, Nanyang Technological University's Wei Lei and Wu Hongjun, Yuki Chen of Trend Micro, Agile Information Security's Pedro Ribeiro, HP ZDI researcher chkr_d591, Honglin Long, Sune Vuorela from Ange Optimization, and researchers with the Venustech Active-Defense Lab.
The third patch, addressing a remote code vulnerability in Illustrator CS6 for Windows and OS X, is considered a lower priority, as the platform is not a popular target for malware attacks – although users and administrators are still advised to test and deploy the update as soon as possible. Credit for discovery of the flaw was given to researcher Noam Rathaus.
Microsoft, meanwhile, released eight bulletins to address a total of 13 reported CVE security flaws.
Remond's updates include a critical update for remote code execution flaws in Internet Explorer (MS14-029) and a critical fix for remote code vulnerabilities in SharePoint Server (MS14-022). Microsoft credited researchers with the Google security team and HP ZDI with discovering those flaws. Microsoft is also including a copy of the MS14-021 out-of-band fix originally posted on May 1.
The seven other bulletins have all been rated as "important" fixes. Those include:
MS14-023 – remote code execution flaws in Office, discovered by NSFOCUS and ANSSI researcher Arnaud Maillet.
MS14-025 – an elevation of privilege issue in Windows.
MS14-026 – an elevation of privilege flaw in .NET discovered by James Forshaw of Context Information Security.
MS14-027 – an elevation of privilege flaw in Windows Shell handler.
MS14-028 – denial of service errors in Windows iSCSI reported by SecuriTeam.
MS14-024 – a security bypass error in Microsoft Common Control.
MS14-025 – an elevation of privilege issue in Windows.
MS14-026 – an elevation of privilege flaw in .NET discovered by James Forshaw of Context Information Security.
MS14-027 – an elevation of privilege flaw in Windows Shell handler.
MS14-028 – denial of service errors in Windows iSCSI reported by SecuriTeam.
MS14-024 – a security bypass error in Microsoft Common Control.
Users and administrators are advised to prioritize the critical fixes, but to install all the security bulletins as soon as possible to protect from attacks.
