Microsoft Patched Actively Exploited IE Zero-Day & Other 98 Vulnerabilities that Affected 1 Billion Windows Users

Microsoft released a security update for February under Patch Tuesday with the fixes fro 99 vulnerabilities that affected various Microsoft products, including Actively exploited Internet Explorer zero-day vulnerability.

Microsoft recently achieved a big milestone of 1 billion Windows 10 users, and Microsoft issued current security updates for all the Windows 10 users.

Microsoft listed 12 vulnerabilities under “Critical” severity, 87 are listed as Important in severity out of 99 vulnerabilities.

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The February security release consists of security updates for the following software:

• Microsoft Windows
• Microsoft Edge (EdgeHTML-based)
• Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based)
• ChakraCore
• Internet Explorer
• Microsoft Exchange Server
• Microsoft SQL Server
• Microsoft Office and Microsoft Office Services and Web Apps
• Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool
• Windows Surface Hub

This updates fixed one of the notable actively exploited internet explorer zero-day vulnerability (CVE-2020-0674) in last month that was Affected Millions of Windows Users.

Microsoft advisory said “The vulnerability could corrupt memory in such a way that an attacker could execute arbitrary code in the context of the current user. An attacker who successfully exploited the vulnerability could gain the same user rights as the current user. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights. “

Most of the vulnerabilities under “CRITICAL” severity are belongs to script engine based vulnerabilities through which an attacker could host a specially crafted website that is designed to exploit the vulnerability through Internet Explorer and then convince a user to view the website. 

Microsoft fixed a LNK Remote Code Execution Vulnerability (CVE-2020-0729 ) that exists in Microsoft Windows that could allow remote code execution if a .LNK file is processed.

An attacker will exploit the vulnerability by inserting a removal drive that contains a malicious.LNK file and an associated malicious binary, once the victims open the files in Windows Explorer the malicious binary will execute code and provide complete control of the system to the attacker.

Another RCE bugs CVE-2020-0618 and CVE-2020-0662 which are nearly identical remote code-execution (RCE) bugs in SQL Server 2012, 2014 and 2016 (32 and 64 bit) and Windows 7, 8.1, 10, Server 2008, 2012, 2016 and 2019, respectively.

two critical remote code-execution vulnerabilities in Remote Desktop (CVE-2020-0681 and CVE-2020-0734) were patched which are are likely to be exploited

Microsoft Security Update list:

Microsoft strongly recommended installing these security updates for all the windows users to avoid the security risk and protect your Windows.

You can refer the complete patch details for the full list of vulnerabilities resolved, advisories, in the Jan 2020 Patch here.