For providers

Based on user feedback we have simplified programmatic access to the security update data by removing the authentication and API-Key requirements when using the CVRF API. You will no longer have to log in to obtain a personal API key to access the data. We’re happy to make this valuable public information more freely available and accessible.

Today Microsoft released a set of fixes affecting Windows TCP/IP implementation that include two Critical Remote Code Execution (RCE) vulnerabilities (CVE-2021-24074, CVE-2021-24094) and an Important Denial of Service (DoS) vulnerability (CVE-2021-24086). The two RCE vulnerabilities are complex which make it difficult to create functional exploits, so they are not likely in the short term.

The Report Abuse (CERT) Portal and Report Abuse API have played a significant role in MSRC’s response to suspected cyberattacks, privacy issues, and abuse originating from Microsoft Online Services. With the contributions from our wonderful community of reporters, we continue to gain insightful perspectives into the various types of attacks that threaten our online services, our cloud, and our customers.

Microsoft addressed a Critical RCE vulnerability affecting the Netlogon protocol (CVE-2020-1472) on August 11, 2020. We are reminding our customers that beginning with the February 9, 2021 Security Update release we will be enabling Domain Controller enforcement mode by default. This will block vulnerable connections from non-compliant devices. DC enforcement mode requires that all Windows and non-Windows devices use secure RPC with Netlogon secure channel unless customers have explicitly allowed the account to be vulnerable by adding an exception for the non-compliant device.

We’re excited to announce the top contributing researchers for the 2020 Fourth Quarter (Q4)! Congratulations to all of the researchers who made this quarter’s leaderboard and a huge thank you to everyone who continues to help secure our customers and the ecosystem. The top three researchers of the 2020 Q4 Security Researcher Leaderboard are: Cameron Vincent (2065 points) , Yuki Chen (1535 points) , and Suresh C (862 points).

Hi Folks, This month we are introducing a new data element for each CVE in the Security Update Guide, called Assigning CNA. First let me back up a bit and give some information about the CVE program. The purpose of a CVE is to uniquely identify a cybersecurity vulnerability. The CVE program was started back in 1999 and is funded by the US federal government, currently out of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).

Over the past several years, Microsoft has rolled out several changes that result in more memory being zeroed. These mitigations include: The InitAll mitigation which zeros most stack variables Switching most Microsoft kernel code over to the ExAllocatePool2/ExAllocatePool3 API’s which zero memory by default. Where possible the compiler will unroll calls to memset.

As we said in our recent blog, we believe the Solorigate incident is an opportunity to work together in important ways, to share information, strengthen defenses and respond to attacks. Like other SolarWinds customers, we have been actively looking for indicators of the Solorigate actor and want to share an update from our ongoing internal investigation.

UPDATE: Microsoft continues to work with partners and customers to expand our knowledge of the threat actor behind the nation-state cyberattacks that compromised the supply chain of SolarWinds and impacted multiple other organizations. Microsoft previously used ‘Solorigate’ as the primary designation for the actor, but moving forward, we want to place appropriate focus on the actors behind the sophisticated attacks, rather than one of the examples of malware used by the actors.

Note: we are updating as the investigation continues. Revision history listed at the bottom. This post contains technical details about the methods of the actor we believe was involved in Recent Nation-State Cyber Attacks, with the goal to enable the broader security community to hunt for activity in their networks and contribute to a shared defense against this sophisticated threat actor.