Microsoft has released a total of 16 security bulletins for June 2016 to fix nearly 40 vulnerabilities in Windows, Edge, Internet Explorer, Office and Exchange Server.
The five bulletins classified as “critical” address remote code execution vulnerabilities in Windows, Internet Explorer, Edge and Office. One of the most interesting bulletins, MS16-071, addresses a use-after-free vulnerability (CVE-2016-3227) triggered when Windows DNS servers fail to properly handle requests.
According to Microsoft, a remote attacker can exploit this vulnerability for arbitrary code execution by sending a specially crafted request to the targeted DNS server.
MS16-063 resolves ten Internet Explorer vulnerabilities that can be exploited by a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code via specially crafted web pages. The flaws are memory corruptions, a WPAD privilege escalation, and an XSS filter bypass. Three of these issues, which have also been addressed separately in MS16-069, exist in the JScript and VBScript scripting engines.
In its Edge web browser, Microsoft patched eight flaws, including a couple that also affect Internet Explorer. The list of issues specific to Edge includes a security feature bypass, and information disclosure and remote code execution vulnerabilities that can be exploited using specially crafted PDF documents.
In Office, the company fixed four critical vulnerabilities, including information disclosure, memory corruption and OLE DLL side-loading issues.
The security bulletins rated “important” resolve privilege escalation, remote code execution, and denial-of-service (DoS) flaws in Windows, and an information disclosure vulnerability in Microsoft Exchange.
While Microsoft is not aware of any instances where these vulnerabilities have been exploited for malicious purposes, the company noted that the details of an Edge memory corruption (CVE-2016-3222), a Windows SMB server privilege elevation (CVE-2016-3225), a Windows WPAD proxy discovery privilege elevation (CVE-2016-3236), and a Windows search component DoS (CVE-2016-3230) have been publicly disclosed.
Qualys CTO Wolfgang Kandek pointed out that Microsoft has released a total of 81 security bulletins in the first half of 2016. If the number doubles by the end of the year, it will represent a new record for the last decade.
Adobe has also released Patch Tuesday security updates. The company fixed vulnerabilities in Creative Cloud, Brackets, DNG SDK and ColdFusion, and it’s preparing a patch for a Flash Player zero-day that has been exploited in limited, targeted attacks.