As we move into the new week, we wanted to take a moment and provide an update on the vulnerability addressed by Microsoft Security Bulletin MS12-020.
Trend Micro has been monitoring the situation aggressively. Like others, we have seen the emergence of “proof of concept” code over the past few days. As of this posting, Trend Micro products with the latest updates (Deep Security, OfficeScan with the Intrusion Defense Firewall plugin, Threat Discovery Appliance) provide effective protections against the proof of concept code currently out there.
It’s clear that this is a high-profile vulnerability with heavy interest and we may see actual exploits emerge over the next few days. Trend Micro already released updates that should cover the exploits that are expected to appear. Furthermore, our Deep Security Labs teams are monitoring and will release updates as necessary to help protect against attempts to exploit this vulnerability.
The next major escalation for this situation would be an active attack. While there are no attacks at this time, because of the potential for widespread compromise in the event of an attack, we again urge customers to test and deploy Microsoft’s security update as soon as possible.
We also encourage customers to implement additional protections in their environment while they test and deploy the security update. Specifically, keeping Trend Micro products up-to-date, implementing the workaround recommended by Microsoft and blocking or monitoring RDP (TCP port 3389). Additionally, Trend Micro Deep Security and IDF customers can turn off remote desktop sharing conveniently on systems where it’s not required by applying the rule 1002508 – Application Control For RDP.
We will continue to monitor the situation and update you about any important new developments through this blog.
Update as of March 21, 2012 12:56 AM (PST)
Trend Micro customers may refer to the Threat Encyclopedia for further details on the corresponding solution.
Update as of March 23, 2012 9:01 AM (PST)
Trend Micro detects the hacking tool found to exploit the Remote Desktop Protocol vulnerability (MS12-020). More information on the hacking tool is posted in this Threat Encyclopedia page.
