Microsoft patches Windows 2000 flaw, SQL holes

Sam Costello, IDG News Service   Today’s Top Stories   or  Other Spam, Malware and Vulnerabilities Stories  

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August 16, 2002 (IDG News Service) -- Microsoft Corp. yesterday released a patch for a vulnerability it called "critical" that could allow an attacker to take complete control of Windows 2000 systems. The company also released a cumulative patch for SQL Sever 7.0 and 2000 that repairs a new security hole.
The first vulnerability exists in the Network Connection Manager (NCM) component of Windows 2000, which is used to process and handle network connections made by users. The NCM is supposed to run in the user's security context, which usually limits what actions a user can take on the system. Because of the flaw, however, it can run in the LocalSystem context, giving the NCM greater privileges, Microsoft said in its security alert.
When the NCM is used, one of its functions is to call on a handler routine run by the NCM, Microsoft said. The flaw could allow attackers who don't have proper access privileges to create their own handler routine and cause the NCM to run it by creating a network connection, the company said.
This attack could cause the attacker-supplied code to run with full system privileges, giving the attacker control of the machine, Microsoft said.
The vulnerability is mitigated, however, because a user usually needs to have privileges to log onto the target system in order to be able to exploit the flaw, the company said.
Microsoft also released a cumulative patch for SQL Server 7.0 and 2000 that includes a fix for a previously undisclosed vulnerability.
The vulnerability exists in the Microsoft-supplied stored procedures that ship with the software and are used for various helper functions, the company said. A flaw in the permissions associated with the procedures could allow users without the proper access rights to execute the procedures with administrator privileges.
Though Microsoft rates the flaw only as "moderate," attackers could exploit the flaw in order to make database calls they're not permitted to make, the company said.

Reprinted with permission from

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