Tuesday’s patch bundle also fixed MiniPlasma, a separate vulnerability disclosed by Nightmare Eclipse. Microsoft said in an email that the vulnerability is tracked as CVE-2020-17103, a vulnerability Microsoft first fixed six years ago. Meaning MiniPlasma was the results of a regression or an incomplete patch in its initial form. The corporate is within the means of updating Tuesday’s bulletin to notice the republication.
Microsoft has yet to release patches for other vulnerabilities disclosed by Nightmare Eclipse. The corporate did provide manual instructions for mitigating YellowKey, a vulnerability that permits attackers to defeat Bitlocker full-disk encryption. That could possibly be a boon when attackers have physical access to a tool (the precise scenario Bitlocker is designed to guard against). The corporate has yet to repair the underlying explanation for the vulnerability.
The status of other vulnerabilities disclosed by Nightmare Eclipse are also unclear in the mean time. The researcher named one vulnerability, present in Windows Defender RedSun. One other, named BlueHammer, can be an area privilege escalation flaw that gives SYSTEM rights.
Over the past few months, Nightmare Eclipse has taken multiple potshots at Microsoft. The particular criticisms remain unclear, but many make references to complaints concerning the company’s vulnerability disclosure program. Microsoft, in turn, has publicly railed against the researcher for “not responsibly” disclosing the vulnerabilities and made a vailed reference to the opportunity of pursuing legal motion. After a public backlash, Microsoft later relented and vowed no such legal motion would occur.
On Tuesday, Nightmare Eclipse published exploit code for a brand new Windows vulnerability. It’s a race condition that targets Defender.
Tuesday’s patch batch included fixes for roughly 200 vulnerabilities. Notwithstanding the looks that MiniPlasma was fixed, two of them were also confirmed as zero-days.
Post updated to incorporate information Microsoft provided after initial publication of this post.