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This month’s Patch Tuesday was prematurely ushered in by a spam attack purporting to carry MS Updates. Don’t be fooled, though, we have found the said spam to carry a backdoor (BKDR_HAXDOOR.MX), and has nothing to do with Microsoft’s official release.

The October 2008 MS Patch Tuesday addresses 20 vulnerabilities, with 4 bulletins marked as critical, six marked as important, and one marked as moderate.

• MS08-056 on Vulnerability in Microsoft Office Could Allow Information Disclosure (957699) – resolves the vulnerability that could allow information disclosure if a user clicks on a specially crafted CDO (collaboration data objects) URL
• MS08-057 on Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Excel Could Allow Remote Code Execution (956416) – resolves three vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office Excel
• MS08-058 on Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer (956390) – resolves a vulnerability in Windows Media Player that could allow remote code execution when a specially crafted audio file is streamed from a Windows Media server
• MS08-059 on Vulnerability in Active Directory Could Allow Remote Code Execution (957280) – a vulnerability in Microsoft Host Integration Server
• MS08-060 on Vulnerabilities in Windows Kernel Could Allow Elevation of Privilege (954211) – resolves a vulnerability in implementation of Active Directory on Microsoft Windows 2000 Server
• MS08-061 on Vulnerabilities in Windows Kernel Could Allow Elevation of Privilege (954211) – resolves three vulnerabilities in the Windows kernel
• MS08-062 on Vulnerability in Windows Internet Printing Service Could Allow Remote Code Execution (953155) – resolves a vulnerability in the Windows Internet Printing Service
• MS08-063 on Vulnerability in SMB Could Allow Remote Code Execution (957095) – resolves a vulnerability in Microsoft Server Message Block (SMB) Protocol
• MS08-064 on Vulnerability in Virtual Address Descriptor Manipulation Could Allow Elevation of Privilege (956841) – resolves a vulnerability in Virtual Address Descriptor
• MS08-065 on Vulnerability in Message Queuing Could Allow Remote Code Execution (951071) – resolves a vulnerability in the Message Queuing Service (MSMQ) on Microsoft Windows 2000 systems
• MS08-066 on Vulnerability in the Microsoft Ancillary Function Driver Could Allow Elevation of Privilege (956803) – resolves a vulnerability in the Microsoft Ancillary Function Driver

More details about this batch of updates can be read at the Microsoft Security Bulletin for October 2008. The page includes an exploitability index.

Today’s online world has become scarier. The least you can do as a matter of due diligence is to make sure your operating system and applications are all up to date. The latest patches can protect you from several vulnerabilities that malware writers can use to conduct attacks onto your PC.