Microsoft is taking an unusual step of patching Win 2003 and XP against a high-severity vulnerability, with Windows 7, Server 2008 and 2008 R2 to be also vulnerable.

The fixes aim a critical Remote Code Execution vulnerability, CVE-2019-0708, in Remote Desktop Services – formerly known as Terminal Services – that affects some older versions of Windows. The Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) itself is not vulnerable. This vulnerability is pre-authentication and requires no user interaction. In other words, the vulnerability is ‘wormable’, meaning that any future malware that exploits this vulnerability could propagate from vulnerable computer to vulnerable computer in a similar way as the WannaCry malware spread across the globe in 2017. While Microsoft has observed no exploitation of this vulnerability, it is highly likely that malicious actors will write an exploit for this vulnerability and incorporate it into their malware.

Microsoft says that affected systems should be patched as quickly as possible to prevent such a scenario from happening.

Vulnerable in-support systems include Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, and Windows Server 2008. Downloads for in-support versions of Windows can be found in the Microsoft Security Update Guide.

Out-of-support systems include Windows 2003 and Windows XP. If you are on an out-of-support version, the best way to address this vulnerability is to upgrade to the latest version of Windows. Even so, Microsoft is making fixes available for these out-of-support versions of Windows in KB4500705.

Users running Windows 8 and Windows 10 are not affected by this vulnerability, and it is no coincidence that later versions of Windows are unaffected.

There is partial mitigation on affected systems that have Network Level Authentication (NLA) enabled. The affected systems are mitigated against ‘wormable’ malware or advanced malware threats that could exploit the vulnerability, as NLA requires authentication before the vulnerability can be triggered. However, affected systems are still vulnerable to Remote Code Execution (RCE) exploitation if the attacker has valid credentials that can be used to successfully authenticate.

Links to downloads for Windows 7, Windows 2008 R2, and Windows 2008

Links to downloads for Windows 2003 and Windows XP