Flash Notice: Two Microsoft Vulnerabilities Exploited in the Wild
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Flash Notice: Two Microsoft Vulnerabilities Exploited in the Wild

CIO Review

This week, Microsoft patched two zero-day vulnerabilities (CVE-2024-29988 and CVE-2024-26234) that are currently being exploited in the wild.

CVE-2024-29988 (CVSS 8.8)

CVE-2024-29988 is a SmartScreen prompt security feature bypass that can be used to bypass the Mark of the Web (MotW) security feature. While Microsoft's official advisory does not acknowledge ongoing exploitation, researchers from Trend Micro's Zero Day Initiative discovered that the vulnerability is being used by the threat actor, Water Hydra, in an attack campaign. This campaign uses Microsoft Defender SmartScreen as a vector to distribute the DarkMe malware to financial market traders.

CVE-2024-26234 (CVSS 6.7)

This vulnerability is a proxy driver spoofing flaw that was reported to Microsoft by Sophos in December 2023. Attacks utilizing this exploit were discovered through an analysis of an executable file, signed with a valid Windows Hardware Compatibility Program (WHCP) certificate, associated with an Android screen mirroring application named LaiXi. The analyzed file was a malicious backdoor file. LaiXi is an application designed for marketing purposes, allowing users to link multiple mobile devices and manage them collectively. It automates various tasks such as bulk following, liking, and commenting to enhance the user's audience reach.

Microsoft has addressed the vulnerabilities by providing patches. Avertium recommends applying the patches for CVE-2024-29988 and CVE-2024-26234 as soon as possible.

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