The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has added half a dozen vulnerabilities to its catalog of Known Exploited Vulnerabilities and is ordering federal agencies to follow vendor’s instructions to fix them.
Of the six security flaws, only one was disclosed this year. It impacts Trend Micro’s Apex One platform for automated threat detection and response.
Ancient bugs resurrected
CISA is giving federal agencies until October 6th to patch security vulnerabilities that have been reported between 2010 and 2022.
Exploiting most of them gives an attacker admin-level permissions (local privilege escalation – LPE) on the system while for two the result is remote code execution (RCE).
Most of the vulnerabilities that CISA added to its KEV catalog were disclosed in 2013 and were used to root Android devices back in the day, through the Tizi malware.
CVE-2013-6282 (LPE) -Linux kernel improper input validation that allows read/write to memory, used for rooting Android devices [VROOT]
CVE-2013-2597 (LPE) – stack-based buffer overflow in Code Aurora audio driver
CVE-2013-2596 (LPE) – Linux kernel integer overflow
CVE-2013-2094 (LPE) – Linux kernel privilege escalation
The oldest bug that CISA ordered federal agencies to patch is from 2010 and was used to spread the Stuxnet worm that damaged the centrifuges at the Natanz uranium enrichment plant to slow the country’s advancements towards developing nuclear weapons.
CVE-2010-2568 (RCE) – Microsoft Windows parsing shortcuts incorrectly, allowing code execution when displaying an icon of a malicious shortcut file
The security issue affecting Trend Micro Apex One and Apex One as a Service is the most recent one. It was disclosed earlier this month (CVE-2022-40139) and threat actors have exploited it for at least one attack.
As per the binding operational directive 22-01 from November 2021, all Federal Civilian Executive Branch Agencies have to patch the security vulnerabilities CISA adds to its KEV catalog for a more secure environment.
While the directive is for organizations in the U.S., companies and corporations around the world can use CISA’s catalog to improve the security of their networks.
