Microsoft released three security bulletins March 10 for Patch Tuesday,
including a patch for a critical vulnerability in the Windows kernel
affecting the graphics device interface.
According to Microsoft, the
Windows kernel does not properly validate input passed from user mode
through the kernel component of GDI. The
vulnerability could allow hackers to run arbitrary code, and can be
exploited by hackers via a malicious EMF or WMF image file.
"This vulnerability provides numerous attack vectors—it can be hosted
on a Web page, sent in an e-mail or even exploited locally," said IBM
X-Force Threat Response Manager Holly Stewart. "Even though the use of
malicious images has been in practice for some time, many end users still do
not consider images, documents and other seemingly 'friendly' file formats to
be malicious."
The GDI bug is addressed in MS09-006,
which fixes a total of three security issues, the other two being handle
validation and invalid pointer vulnerabilities. With the exception of the
kernel handle vulnerability—which an attacker would have to log on locally to
exploit—all of the critical bugs addressed by the bulletin have workarounds
that can be used in lieu of a patch. So far, Microsoft has received no reports
of attacks on the vulnerabilities.
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