Critical Vulnerability Within Microsoft Secure Channel Allows Remote Code Execution

Microsoft issued a warning on Tuesday regarding a vulnerability within Microsoft Secure Channel, that allows a remote execution of an arbitrary code. The vulnerability has an identifier CVE-2014-6321. It affects all supported versions of Windows.

The advisory states that the “security update is rated Critical for all supported releases of Microsoft Windows.” Therefore, it’s advised to update your Windows as soon as possible. In fact, a blog post by the SANS Institute suggests the update should have been called “Patch Now” instead of the official name MS14-066, especially when it comes to Windows servers. The post further warns that affected users likely have a week, possibly even less, to patch before an exploit is released.

There is currently no official workaround, although this might change as the issue is further analyzed. It’s advised to check for any SSL errors, even on non-Windows servers to spot any exploit attempts.

This vulnerability could turn into a worm like “slapper”, an OpenSSL worm exploiting Apache back in the day.

If you experience an attack due to this vulnerability, be sure to share your results with the cybersecurity community by using this form (SANS).