Oh no, you're thinking, yet another cookie pop-up. Well, sorry, it's the law. We measure how many people read us, and ensure you see relevant ads, by storing cookies on your device. If you're cool with that, hit “Accept all Cookies”. For more info and to customize your settings, hit “Customize Settings”.

Review and manage your consent

Here's an overview of our use of cookies, similar technologies and how to manage them. You can also change your choices at any time, by hitting the “Your Consent Options” link on the site's footer.

Manage Cookie Preferences
  • These cookies are strictly necessary so that you can navigate the site as normal and use all features. Without these cookies we cannot provide you with the service that you expect.

  • These cookies are used to make advertising messages more relevant to you. They perform functions like preventing the same ad from continuously reappearing, ensuring that ads are properly displayed for advertisers, and in some cases selecting advertisements that are based on your interests.

  • These cookies collect information in aggregate form to help us understand how our websites are being used. They allow us to count visits and traffic sources so that we can measure and improve the performance of our sites. If people say no to these cookies, we do not know how many people have visited and we cannot monitor performance.

See also our Cookie policy and Privacy policy.

This article is more than 1 year old

It's 2016 and Windows lets crims poison your printer drivers

One of the messes munched this Patch Tuesday is very nasty, for you and Redmond

Among the Microsoft messes addressed in latest round of Patch Tuesday updates is a real doozy that allows remote attackers to compromise Windows machines thanks to a critical security vulnerability affecting printer drivers.

The flaw is found in all desktop Windows since Vista and Windows Server since 2008 and means malvertising or malicious or hacked sites could quietly deliver malicious printer drivers.

That attack is possible because malicious code can be injected into a printer spooler service which fails (CVE-2016-3238) to properly validate code.

Printers can be targeted through three options including one of a host of vulnerabilities affecting most printers, through common default logins, or by spoofing a fake printer to lure users to connect to it.

Vectra researcher Nick Beauchesne discovered and reported the flaws to Microsoft. He did not disclose proof-of-concept exploit code but did detail the vulnerability including recommended potential attack vectors in a technical analysis.

Organisations should assume the vulnerability will soon be used by criminals.

Vectra's chief security officer Gunter Ollmann described the exploit as a "powerful" watering hole attack that helps hackers more easily move to other hosts.

"You may have travelling employees who would show up and expect to print … leading to an issue where users have to quickly connect to a printer," Ollmann says.

"If an attacker gets inside the network and is able to replace the valid approved driver (delivered on demand) with a malicious one that driver will be delivered to anyone who tries to connect to a printer.

"That malicious code will be run without checks at the system level … which allows attackers to open remote shells at a system level."

Ollmann says the vulnerability is "incredibly important" because it is good ammunition for targeted attacks: it is difficult to detect, is effective at gaining an initial infection, and helps attackers' lateral movement.

It is probably the gnarliest of Microsoft's fixes for 52 CVE-listed vulnerabilities. Of those 49 grant hackers remote code execution.

Adobe meanwhile has slapped some of its own Flash fixes to celebrate Patch Tuesday pain day.

Daring users running the ravaged runtime need to patch Windows, OS X, Linux, and ChromeOS versions of Flash to avoid becoming dinner for exploit kits, or just uninstall it.

Adobe has also released an update for Acrobat/Reader and XMP Toolkit for Java. ®

Similar topics

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like