In what has been one of the more challenging weeks in its history, AusCERT's staff continued to provide member services, including incident response and security bulletins. The Brisbane flood has impacted upon AusCERT, with its offices isolated and some staff members' homes threatened directly by the rising water. Although the immediate crisis has passed, AusCERT resources will be strained for the next week.

This week was Microsoft patch week, but with only two bulletins published[1] it was a relatively quiet release. MS11-002 (Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Data Access Components Could Allow Remote Code Execution (2451910)), in particular, was rated as Critical for all supported versions of XP, Vista and 7 and addresses a vulnerability that may be exploited in a 'drive-by' download. AusCERT regularly notifies webmasters and brand-owners when their sites are infected with this type of malicious code.

In other bulletins, Hewlett Packard released advisories[2] for vulnerabilities in two products that permitted remote code execution and Google updated Chrome[3] for multiple vulnerabilities, the worst of which also permitted remote code execution.

Have a safe weekend.

The AusCERT Team

[1] ESB-2011.0026 - [Win] Microsoft: Execute arbitrary code/commands -
Remote with user interaction
http://www.auscert.org.au/13807
ESB-2011.0025 - [Win] Windows Backup Manager: Execute arbitrary
code/commands - Remote with user interaction
http://www.auscert.org.au/13806

[2] ESB-2011.0041 - [Win][Linux][HP-UX][Solaris][AIX] IBM WebSphere MQ 7.0:
Execute arbitrary code/commands - Remote/unauthenticated
http://www.auscert.org.au/13824
ESB-2011.0040 - [Win] HP LoadRunner 9.52: Execute arbitrary
code/commands - Remote/unauthenticated
http://www.auscert.org.au/13823

[3] ASB-2011.0004 - [Win][Linux][OSX] Google Chrome prior to 8.0.552.237:
Execute arbitrary code/commands - Remote with user interaction
http://www.auscert.org.au/13825