News

Fix Released for ISA Server

• By Scott Bekker
• November 10, 2004

The patch fixed a spoofing vulnerability that Microsoft rated an "important" problem. The patch was included in Microsoft's 39th security bulletin of the year.

Microsoft provided an early warning that ISA Server was about to be patched on Thursday, when the company introduced its Microsoft Security Bulletin Advanced Notification Program. The new program provides information on a Web site about the number of security bulletins it will release, the products involved and the maximum severity of the vulnerabilities.

The advanced notification program had previously only been available to certain customers willing to sign a non-disclosure agreement.

Other than the debut of the advanced notification program, Microsoft's "Patch Tuesday" for November was a low-key affair after an October Patch Tuesday that swamped IT departments with 10 security bulletins.

The new security bulletin covering the vulnerability in ISA Server and Proxy Server is available at www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms04-039.mspx.

The newly discovered and privately-reported vulnerability could allow an attacker to spoof trusted Internet content. The vulnerability stems from the way ISA 2000 and Proxy Server 2.0 cache the results of a reverse lookup. An attacker would have to persuade a user to view content that causes a reverse lookup to occur, and the attacker wouldn't be able to spoof an SSL certificate, according to Microsoft's bulletin.