MS Windows XP CVE-2013-5065 Eleventh zero-day flaw found by FireEye

FireEye Security Experts discovered Microsoft Windows XP and Server 2003 privilege escalation zero-day exploit

Security experts at FireEye have discovered a new zero-day, a privilege escalation vulnerability in Windows XP and Windows Server 2003.

It’s is the eleventh vulnerability discovered by FireEye this year, really a great job for the researchers of the young company. The last zero-day flaw is coded by Microsoft as CVE-2013-5065, it is a privilege escalation vulnerability that is combined by hackers with another exploit in Adobe Reader (CVE-2013-3346).

Microsoft has issued a security advisory (2914486) informing the customers that Windows Kernel could allow elevation of privilege to attackers due the exploit of a bug in Windows XP’s NDPROXY.SYS driver.

“We are aware of limited, targeted attacks that attempt to exploit this vulnerability. Our investigation of this vulnerability has verified that it does not affect customers who are using operating systems newer than Windows XP and Windows Server 2003.” reported Microsoft.

Hackers could exploit the flaw to execute arbitrary code in the system’s kernel running it from a standard user account, be aware the vulnerability cannot be used for remote code execution.

“An attacker must have valid logon credentials and be able to log on locally to exploit this vulnerability. The vulnerability could not be exploited remotely or by anonymous users” states the advisory.

The attacker once elevated his privileges is able to conduct various activities, including accessing or deleting data, installing programs or creating accounts with administrative privileges.

It must be considered that on April 10, 2012, Microsoft announced that extended support for Windows XP and Office 2003 would end on April 8, 2014 and suggested that administrators begin preparing to migrate to a newer OS. This means that XP systems will no longer receive security updates provided by Microsoft … a good reason to upgrade the OS.

Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – Microsoft, zero-day)

Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.