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Scrape Timestamp (UTC): 2023-11-03 15:15:47.905
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Microsoft Exchange impacted by zero-days allowing RCE, data theft. Microsoft Exchange is impacted by four zero-day vulnerabilities that attackers can exploit remotely to execute arbitrary code or disclose sensitive information on affected installations. The zero-day vulnerabilities were disclosed by Trend Micro's Zero Day Initiative (ZDI) yesterday, who reported them to Microsoft on September 7th and 8th, 2023. Despite Microsoft acknowledging the reports, its security engineers decided the flaws weren't severe enough to guarantee immediate servicing, postponing the fixes for later. ZDI disagreed with this response and decided to publish the flaws under its own tracking IDs to warn Exchange admins about the security risks. A summary of the flaws can be found below: All these vulnerabilities require authentication for exploitation, which reduces their severity CVSS rating to between 7.1 and 7.5. Furthermore, requiring authentication is a mitigation factor and possibly why Microsoft did not prioritize the fixing of the bugs. It should be noted, though, that cybercriminals have many ways to obtain Exchange credentials, including brute-forcing weak passwords, performing phishing attacks, purchasing them, or acquiring them from info-stealer logs. That said, the above zero-days shouldn't be treated as unimportant, especially ZDI-23-1578 (RCE), which can result in complete system compromise. ZDI suggests that the only salient mitigation strategy is to restrict interaction with Exchange apps. However, this can be unacceptably disruptive for many businesses and organizations using the product. We also suggest implementing multi-factor authentication to prevent cybercriminals from accessing Exchange instances even when account credentials have been compromised. BleepingComputer has contacted Microsoft for a comment on ZDI's disclosure and is still waiting for a response.
Daily Brief Summary
Trend Micro's Zero Day Initiative (ZDI) disclosed four zero-day vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange, which could allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary code or expose sensitive information.
Despite being reported to Microsoft on September 7th and 8th, 2023, it was determined the flaws were not serious enough to precipitate immediate servicing by Microsoft security engineers.
All the vulnerabilities require authentication, which reduces the severity of their Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) rating between 7.1 and 7.5.
However, multiple methods exist for cybercriminals to obtain Exchange credentials, making these vulnerabilities significant; consequently, ZDI emphasizes the importance of addressing them efficiently.
ZDI suggests limiting interactions with Exchange apps as the main mitigation strategy, albeit potential inconvenience for business operations and recommends implementing multi-factor authentication to prevent intrusion even if credentials are compromised.
Microsoft has yet to respond to ZDI's disclosure and at the time of BleepingComputer's reporting, a response is still awaited.