The Redmond giant has rolled out its monthly scheduled updates for users, addressing multiple vulnerabilities. Specifically, Microsoft fixed 84 different security bugs with July Patch Tuesday, including an actively exploited zero-day.
While the updates would reach users automatically, it’s still wise to manually check for updates and patch your systems at the earliest to avoid exploit.
Critical Zero-Day Under Attack Receives A Fix
A noteworthy bug fix from Microsoft with the July Patch Tuesday bundle includes the one for CVE-2022-22047. Microsoft described it as an important-severity vulnerability that attained a CVSS score of 7.8. According to its advisory, this elevation of privilege bug in Windows CSRSS went under attack before receiving a fix. Regarding the impact of this vulnerability, the advisory reads,
An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could gain SYSTEM privileges.
Despite confirming to have detected active exploitation of the flaw, Microsoft hasn’t shared any details yet regarding how the bug facilitated the attackers, the extent of the attacks, geographical region, etc.
Other Microsoft Patch Tuesday Updates
Alongside the serious zero-day bug, Microsoft has also fixed four critical severity remote code execution vulnerabilities. These bugs include,
- CVE-2022-22038 (CVSS 8.1): affecting the Remote Procedure Call Runtime
- CVE-2022-30221 (CVSS 8.8): existing in the Windows Graphics Component
- CVE-2022-22029 (CVSS 8.1): existing in the Windows Network File System
- CVE-2022-22039 (CVSS 7.5): also affecting the Windows Network File System
In addition, this update bundle addresses 79 different important severity vulnerabilities affecting various components. From these, a noteworthy mention includes CVE-2022-30216. Microsoft described it as a “tampering” vulnerability in the Windows Server Service. Interestingly, this important-severity bug received a high CVSS score (8.8), hinting at the seriousness of the exploit.
Specifically, exploiting this bug merely required an adversary to upload a maliciously crafted certificate to the target Server service. This bug first caught the attention of security researcher Ben Barnea from Akamai Technologies, who then reported it to Microsoft. While the tech giant has confirmed no active exploitation or public disclosure of the vulnerability before the fix, it does label its exploitation “more likely”.
Alongside all bug fixes, Microsoft has also released updates for the recently-patched Chromium vulnerability (CVE-2022-2294) to facilitate users. Since all updates are out, Microsoft users must rush to update their systems at the earliest to prevent any mishaps.