Microsoft said the Print Spooler patch it is pushing today should address all publicly documented security problems with the service. “Microsoft does state low privileges are required, so that should put this in the non-wormable category, but you should still prioritize testing and deployment of this Critical-rated bug,” Childs said. Today’s Patch Tuesday fixes another critical Print Spooler flaw ( CVE-2021-36936), but it’s not clear if this bug is a variant of PrintNightmare or a unique vulnerability all on its own, said Dustin Childs at Trend Micro’s Zero Day Initiative. Since then, a number of researchers have discovered holes in that patch, allowing them to circumvent its protections. Last month, the company rushed out an emergency update to patch “ PrintNightmare” - a critical hole in its Windows Print Spooler software that was being attacked in the wild.

Top of the heap again this month: Microsoft also took another stab at fixing a broad class of weaknesses in its printing software. “In the case of ransomware attacks, they have also been used to ensure maximum damage.”Īccording to Microsoft, critical flaws are those that can be exploited remotely by malware or malcontents to take complete control over a vulnerable Windows computer - and with little to no help from users. “CVE-2021-36948 is a privilege escalation vulnerability – the cornerstone of modern intrusions as they allow attackers the level of access to do things like hide their tracks and create user accounts,” said Kevin Breen of Immersive Labs. The flaw is an “elevation of privilege” vulnerability that affects Windows 10 and Windows Server 2019, meaning it can be leveraged in combination with another vulnerability to let attackers run code of their choice as administrator on a vulnerable system. Redmond says while CVE-2021-36948 is being actively exploited, it is not aware of exploit code publicly available. Update Medic is a new service that lets users repair Windows Update components from a damaged state so that the device can continue to receive updates. Microsoft said attackers have seized upon CVE-2021-36948, which is a weakness in the Windows Update Medic service. The software giant warned that attackers already are pouncing on one of the flaws, which ironically enough involves an easy-to-exploit bug in the software component responsible for patching Windows 10 PCs and Windows Server 2019 machines.

Microsoft today released software updates to plug at least 44 security vulnerabilities in its Windows operating systems and related products.

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