Overview Of Windows Vulnerabilities
A Brief History of Windows Vulnerabilities
Microsoft Windows is the dominant operating system worldwide with a market share >=70% as of 2021.
The popularity and deployment of Windows by individuals and companies makes it a prime target for attackers given the threat surface.
Over the last 15 years, Windows has had its fair share of severe vulnerabilities, ranging from MS08-067(Conflicker) to MS17-010 (EternalBlue).
Given the popularity of Windows, most of these vulnerabilities have publicly accessible exploit code making them relatively straightforward to exploit.
Windows Vulnerabilities
Microsoft Windows has various OS versions and releases which makes the threat surface fragmented in terms of vulnerabilities. For example, vulnerabilities that exist in Windows 7 are not present in Windows 10.
Regardless of the various versions and releases, all Windows OS’s share a likeness given the development model and philosophy:
Windows OS’s have been developed in the C programming language, making them vulnerable to buffer overflows, arbitrary code execution etc…
By default, Windows is not configured to run securely and require a proactive implementation of security practices in order to configure Windows to run securely.
Newly discovered vulnerabilities are not immediately patched by Microsoft and given the fragmented nature of Windows, many systems are left unpatched.
The frequent releases of new versions of Windows is also a contributing factor to exploitation, as many companies take a substantial length of time to upgrade their systems to the latest version of Windows and opt to use older versions that may be affected by an increasing number of vulnerabilities.
In addition to inherent vulnerabilities, Windows is also vulnerable to cross platform vulnerabilities, for example SQL injection attacks.
Systems/hosts running Windows are also vulnerable to physical attacks like; theft, malicious peripheral devices etc…
Types of Windows Vulnerabilities
Information disclosure - Vulnerability that allows an attacker to access confidential data.
Buffer overflows - Caused by a programming error, allows attackers to write data to a buffer and overrun the allocated buffer, consequently writing data to allocated memory addresses.
Remote code execution - Vulnerability that allows an attacker to remotely execute code on the target system.
Privilege escalation - Vulnerability that allows an attacker to elevate their privileges after initial compromise.
Denial of Service (DOS) - Vulnerability that allows an attacker to consume a system/host’s resources (CPU, RAM, Network etc) consequently preventing the system from functioning normally.
Frequently Exploited Windows Services
Microsoft Windows has various native services and protocols that can be configured to run on a host.
These services provide an attacker with an access vector that they can utilize to gain access to a target host.
Having a good understanding of what these services are, how they work and their potential vulnerabilities is a vitally important skill to have as a penetration tester.
Hacker's Mantra:Hackers are breaking the systems for profit. Before, it was about intellectual curiosity and pursuit of knowledge and thrill, and now hacking is big business. - Kevin Mitnick
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