Daily Malicious Files Soar 3% in 2023, Kaspersky Finds

CVE-2023-23397 is an elevation of privilege vulnerability in Microsoft Outlook caused by improper input validation (CWE-20) combined with authentication bypass via spoofed authentication data on the channel (CWE-294), allowing an attacker to force Outlook to authenticate to an attacker-controlled SMB/WebDAV server. It is triggered when Outlook processes a crafted email or calendar object — for example a meeting or task reminder whose sound property points to an attacker-supplied UNC path — and requires no user interaction. That authentication exchange leaks the victim's NTLM credential hash, which the attacker can crack offline or relay to authenticate as the victim and access resources such as Exchange mailboxes, effectively escalating privileges. Affected software spans Microsoft 365 Apps, Microsoft Office (including the Long Term Servicing Channel), and Microsoft Outlook, which are deployed across enterprises, governments, and militaries worldwide. It is actively exploited in the wild — added to CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog on 2023-03-14 with a 97.4% EPSS — and Microsoft has warned of exploitation by Russia-aligned threat actors in campaigns against government and military mail servers, with patches shipped in Microsoft's March 2023 security updates.

Do: Apply Microsoft's March 2023 security updates to Microsoft 365 Apps, Office/LTSC, and Outlook immediately, per CISA's required action. As interim mitigation, enable Extended Protection for Authentication or add accounts to the Protected Users group to block the NTLM credential leak, and audit calendar and task reminder sound properties for UNC paths (Microsoft published an audit/cleanup script for this) while watching for unexpected outbound SMB/WebDAV connections from hosts running Outlook.

CVE-2023-34362 is an unauthenticated SQL injection flaw (CWE-89) in Progress MOVEit Transfer that allows an attacker with no credentials to gain unauthorized access to the product's database. It is triggered remotely via crafted input submitted to the MOVEit Transfer web application, with the impact varying by the backend database engine in use (MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server, or Azure SQL). A successful attacker can infer the structure and contents of the database and, depending on the engine, execute SQL statements that alter or delete database elements, exposing data handled by the file-transfer service. Any organization running an internet-reachable MOVEit Transfer instance is affected; public internet-exposure scans around disclosure identified on the order of a few thousand servers, each typically serving enterprise or government user bases. Exploitation is confirmed in the wild: the flaw was added to CISA KEV on 2023-06-02 with known ransomware use and an EPSS exploitation probability of 99.9% (100th percentile), while no public PoC is known.

Do: Apply the vendor's updates immediately, per Progress instructions and CISA's required action. Until patched, restrict internet exposure of MOVEit Transfer and check the backend database for unexpected structure or content changes and deletions. Because in-the-wild exploitation and ransomware use are confirmed, treat any unpatched, internet-facing instance as potentially compromised and review stored transfer data and access logs for anomalies.

In Progress MOVEit Transfer before 2021.0.7 (13.0.7), 2021.1.5 (13.1.5), 2022.0.5 (14.0.5), 2022.1.6 (14.1.6), and 2023.0.2 (15.0.2), SQL injection vulnerabilities have been found in the MOVEit Transfer web application that could allow an unauthenticated attacker to gain unauthorized access to MOVEit Transfer's database. An attacker could submit a crafted payload to a MOVEit Transfer application endpoint that could result in modification and disclosure of MOVEit database content.

In Progress MOVEit Transfer before 2021.0.8 (13.0.8), 2021.1.6 (13.1.6), 2022.0.6 (14.0.6), 2022.1.7 (14.1.7), and 2023.0.3 (15.0.3), a SQL injection vulnerability has been identified in the MOVEit Transfer web application that could allow an unauthenticated attacker to gain unauthorized access to MOVEit Transfer's database. An attacker could submit a crafted payload to a MOVEit Transfer application endpoint that could result in modification and disclosure of MOVEit database content. These are fixed versions of the DLL drop-in: 2020.1.10 (12.1.10), 2021.0.8 (13.0.8), 2021.1.6 (13.1.6), 2022.0.6 (14.0.6), 2022.1.7 (14.1.7), and 2023.0.3 (15.0.3).