Microsoft Patch Tuesday | December 13
In today’s SensCy Cyber Brief, your SensCy team reviewed Microsoft’s latest series of patches released on Tuesday, December 13, 2022. Today’s Patch Tuesday comes with fixes for two zero-days including a zero-day vulnerability currently used by cyber criminals, and a total of 49 flaws.
What is Patch Tuesday?
Patch Tuesday is Microsoft’s initiative to release new security fixes for the Windows operating system and any other Microsoft software on a monthly basis. Your SensCy team will monitor such releases and provide you with our observations and recommendations.
Why is it important?
This month’s patch Tuesday is critical because it fixes two zero-day vulnerabilities (a vulnerability in a system or device that has been disclosed but is not yet patched). The SensCy team recommends Microsoft users install those patches immediately.
Of the two zero-day vulnerabilities, one is actively exploited and the other publicly disclosed. They can be tracked as CVE-2022-44698 (Windows SmartScreen Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability) and CVE-2022-44710 (DirectX Graphics Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability)
In addition to the zero-day fix, Microsoft is also fixing 49 vulnerabilities, with six classified as “Critical” as they allow privileged elevation, remote code execution, spoofing.
Here is a breakdown of each vulnerability category:
- 19 Elevation of Privilege Vulnerabilities
- 2 Security Feature Bypass Vulnerabilities
- 23 Remote Code Execution Vulnerabilities
- 3 Information Disclosure Vulnerabilities
- 3 Denial of Service Vulnerabilities
- 1 Spoofing Vulnerabilities
For more information on vulnerabilities and the system that it effects, please refer to the full report from Microsoft linked here.
If you have any questions or concerns regarding patch Tuesday and are unsure of the implication of the new updates on your company, please reach out to SensCy.
