Palo Alto Networks™, the leader in next-generation firewalls, today announced that its Threat Research Team discovered one of the vulnerabilities rated as “critical” that was published in Microsoft’s Patch Tuesday security bulletin today.

Microsoft credits Palo Alto Networks’ Threat Research Team for finding a remote code execution vulnerability (CVE-2009-1929) in the Microsoft Terminal Services Client ActiveX Control that could allow an attacker to take complete control of a vulnerable system. An attacker could exploit the vulnerability, called the Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection ActiveX Control Heap Overflow Vulnerability, by constructing a specially crafted Web page that could potentially allow remote code execution if a user visited that page.

Palo Alto Networks’ next-generation firewalls are unique in the industry in their ability to see and control applications, users and content – not just ports, IP addresses and packets. Traditional port-blocking firewalls do not have the content intelligence to identify a possible application exploit such as this, which could allow an attacker to install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full privileges.

The Palo Alto Networks Threat Research Team is active in the research community, aggressively pursuing both new vulnerability research and mitigation of all types of threats. Leveraging its expert understanding of today’s applications, threats and how vulnerabilities get exploited, the team is a consistent contributor in support of Microsoft’s Patch Tuesday releases, including discovering four Microsoft vulnerabilities in the past six months.

Palo Alto Networks’ next-generation firewalls are the industry’s most powerful firewall products, enabling enterprises to see and control applications, users and content – not just ports, IP addresses and packets. This is a critical need for enterprises’ management of risk as industry studies continue to show enterprises lack visibility into and control of application traffic due to the outdated functionality of legacy security technology.1 Palo Alto Networks’ next-generation firewalls enable enterprises to create granular, business-relevant security policies and safely control new enterprise and consumer applications as business enablers instead of the block-or-nothing approach offered by traditional port-blocking firewalls.

About Palo Alto Networks

Palo Alto Networks™ is the leader in next-generation firewalls, enabling unprecedented visibility and granular policy control of applications and content – by user, not just IP address – at up to 10Gbps with no performance degradation. Based on patent-pending App-ID™ technology, Palo Alto Networks firewalls accurately identify and control applications – regardless of port, protocol, evasive tactic or SSL encryption – and scan content to stop threats and prevent data leakage. Enterprises can for the first time embrace Web 2.0 and maintain complete visibility and control, while significantly reducing total cost of ownership through device consolidation. For more information, visit www.paloaltonetworks.com.

 

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