Kaspersky Lab has confirmed that Automatic Exploit Prevention (AEP) technology has successfully blocked any attempts to exploit this previously-unknown Microsoft software vulnerability, keeping company’s customers safe from targeted attacks and other emerging threats that may have leveraged this weakness.
On November 5, Microsoft issued a Security Advisory notifying users of a system vulnerability that would allow successful attackers to gain the same access rights as the current user.Given the vast usage of affected programs; this software vulnerability put millions of users around the world at risk.
By monitoring for unusual behavior, and not simply relying on databases of malware that has already been detected, Kaspersky Lab’s Automatic Exploit Prevention has once again proved the value of its proactive protection.
“Behavior-based detection logic for this kind of exploitation was implemented in Automatic Exploit Prevention technology almost a year ago. Based on our research, which was conducted after the vulnerability was disclosed, first malicious attack attempts using this vulnerability happened as early as July of this year. We think it is a significant achievement that our products successfully protect our clients long before the public announcement of the existence of the vulnerability,” said Nikita Shvetsov, Deputy CTO (Research) at Kaspersky Lab.
In October 2013, Kaspersky released a highly-detailed report on the evolution of exploits in Java software from 2012-2013. The report listed more than 160 Java vulnerabilities identified over the course of the year, and these vulnerabilities were attacked by exploit malware more than 14 million times including a then-unknown Zero-Day vulnerabilities that were used in the Icefog cyber espionage campaign.
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