CISA issues emergency order requiring agencies to patch critical Windows bug

The order gives federal civilian agencies roughly 24 hours to act.

The Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity division on Thursday ordered federal civilian agencies to apply a security fix for a newly revealed Microsoft Windows vulnerability, citing the “unacceptable significant risk” posed by the flaw to agencies’ security.

The emergency order — only the third ever issued by DHS’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency — gave agencies roughly 24 hours to either patch Windows servers used for domain name system purposes or apply another mitigation. Organizations with affected servers that aren’t for DNS have until July 24 to patch.

The urgency of the directive is “based on the likelihood of the vulnerability being exploited, the widespread use of the affected software across the federal enterprise, the high potential for a compromise of agency information systems, and the grave impact of a successful compromise,” CISA said in its directive. The agency said it wasn’t aware of any active exploitation of the vulnerability — yet.

“[I]t is only a matter of time for an exploit to be created for this vulnerability,” CISA Director Chris Krebs said.

Microsoft on Tuesday issued a patch for the vulnerability, which is “wormable,” meaning malware abusing the vulnerability could move from infected system to infected system on its own. Security researchers immediately sounded the alarm about the potential impact of the bug because it could allow hackers who exploit it to intercept and tamper with network traffic and steal users’ credentials.

Some of the more dangerous software vulnerabilities in recent memory have been wormable, including the Windows flaw exploited by the 2017 WannaCry malware, which infected over 200,000 machines in 150 countries, costing Britain’s National Health Service alone more than $100 million.

Government

• FBI officials say AI is bolstering adversaries, emphasizing need to focus on cyber basics, patching

• Feds accuse China of ‘systematic’ distillation of U.S. AI models

• CIA’s Michael Ellis says cyber intelligence is changing how the agency operates

• The G7 tells industry to hurry up and prep for post-quantum encryption

Technology

• European parliament members call for slowdown of Serbia’s EU entry over spyware use

• FCC proposes public scorecard to rate telecoms on anti-robocall efforts

• Pegasus, NoviSpy variant spyware found on devices of Serbian activists

• Wyden seeks upgraded NSA security guidance on commercial VPN use

Threats

• Chinese espionage groups swarm to exploit triple-link chain of zero-days

• Microsoft discloses two actively exploited zero-days among 974 vulnerabilities

• Russian national extradited to US for alleged involvement in bank-account takeover scheme

• Attackers exploit zero-days in consistently besieged SonicWall product

Policy

• Whistleblower says USPS deploying new, ‘untested’ IT systems governing mail-in ballots

• ‘Watershed 250’ test program in Texas looks to private sector for water cybersecurity help

• Former sexual abuse victims say Grok used their images, videos to train deepfake capabilities

• Cyber threats nudge Trump to sign executive order on foreign equipment in U.S. energy infrastructure