News

Microsoft Posts Terminal Server Security Patch

Microsoft Corp. has posted a patch for a security hole that allows attackers to take down Windows NT Server 4.0, Terminal Server Edition with a denial-of-service attack.

Microsoft announced availability of the patch Monday in a security bulletin. Security vendor Internet Security Systems Inc. (www.iss.net) discovered the vulnerability.

Because Terminal Server responds to requests for new sessions by initiating the resource-intensive process of starting the session before it authenticates that the requester is a legitimate user, attackers can flood the server with bogus requests.

Terminal Server does not limit the system resources that can be devoted to setting up new sessions, so such an attack can crash the system. New legitimate connections would be blocked, existing sessions would fail and data could be lost.

According to Microsoft, an attacker cannot use the vulnerability to take administrative control of the system.

The patch gets around the problem by causing Terminal Server to authenticate the requester before processing the request. -- Scott Bekker

About the Author

Scott Bekker is editor in chief of Redmond Channel Partner magazine.

Featured

  • Windows 365 Cloud Apps Now Available for Public Preview

    Microsoft announced this week that Windows 365 Cloud Apps are now available for public preview. This aims to allow IT administrators to stream individual Windows applications from the cloud, removing the need to assign Cloud PCs to every user.

  • Report: Security Initiatives Can't Keep Pace with Cloud, AI Boom

    The increasingly fast adoption of hybrid, multicloud, and AI systems is easily outgrowing existing security measures, according to a recent global survey by the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) and exposure management firm Tenable.

  • World Map Image

    Microsoft Taps Nebius in $17B AI Infrastructure Deal To Alleviate Cloud Strain

    Microsoft has signed a five-year, $17.4 billion agreement with Amsterdam-based Nebius Group to expand its AI computing capabilities through third-party GPU infrastructure.

  • Microsoft Brings Copilot AI Into Viva Engage

    Microsoft 365 Copilot in Viva Engage is now generally available, extending Copilot's AI-powered assistant capabilities deeper into the Viva platform.

Most   Popular