No mayday call necessary for the year’s fifth Patch Tuesday

The deluge of patches in April dried up substantially in May, as Microsoft on Tuesday released 59 patches touching 11 product families. Windows as usual takes the lion’s share of patches with 48, with the rest spread among .NET, 365 Apps for Enterprise, Azure, Bing Search for iOS, Dynamics 365, Intune, Office, Power BI, SharePoint, and Visual Studio. There is just one critical-severity issue, affecting SharePoint.
At patch time, two issues, both important-severity faults affecting Windows, are known to be under active exploit in the wild. Ten additional important-severity vulnerabilities in Windows and SharePoint are by the company’s estimation more likely to be exploited in the next 30 days. Eight of the issues are amenable to detection by Sophos protections, and we include information on those in a table below.
In addition to these patches, the release includes advisory information on six patches related to the Edge browser; two related to Visual Studio but managed by GitHub, not Microsoft; and four from Adobe. We don’t include advisories in the CVE counts and graphics below, but we provide information on all of them in an appendix at the end of the article. We are as usual including at the end of this post three other appendices listing all Microsoft’s patches, sorted by severity, by predicted exploitability, and by product family.
By the numbers

Total Microsoft CVEs: 59
Total Edge / Chrome advisory issues covered in update: 6
Total non-Microsoft Visual Studio advisory issues covered in update: 2
Total Adobe issues covered in update: 4
Publicly disclosed: 2
Exploited: 2
Severity

Critical: 1
Important: 57
Moderate: 1

Impact:

Remote Code Execution: 25
Elevation of Privilege: 17
Information Disclosure: 7
Spoofing: 4
Denial of Service: 3
Security Feature Bypass: 2
Tampering: 1

Figure 1: May continues the previous month’s emphasis on RCE issues, though all seven of Microsoft’s usual impact categories put in an appearance
Products

Windows: 48
Dynamics 365: 2
SharePoint: 2
Visual Studio: 2 (including one shared with .NET; in addition, two advisory issues apply to VS)
.NET: 1 (shared with Visual Studio)
365 Apps for Enterprise: 1 (shared with Office)
Azure: 1
Bing Search for iOS: 1
Intune: 1
Office: 1 (shared with 365 Apps for Enterprise)
Power BI: 1

Figure 2: Windows takes the overwhelming number of May patches, but only SharePoint has a critical-severity issue to manage
Notable May updates and themes
In addition to the issues discussed above, a few specific items merit attention.
CVE-2024-4559 – Chromium: CVE-2024-4671 Use after free in Visuals
Are we really leading this section with an advisory this month? Yes. This Chrome bug was technically patched Friday (one day after an anonymous researcher reported it to Google), and it’s mentioned in Microsoft’s Patch Tuesday release simply to assure Edge users that the latest version addresses this high-severity issue. That said, Edge – and all browsers using Chromium OSS – need to patch immediately, as this one was found in the wild. Go.
CVE-2024-30040 – Windows MSHTML Platform Security Feature Bypass VulnerabilityCVE-2024-30051 — Windows DWM Core Library Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability
Two additional issues have been detected under exploit in the wild. The MSHTML issue has a base CVSS value of 8.8; the bug bypasses a feature in Microsoft 365 called OLE Auto-Activation Block, which allows admins to prevent abuse of OLE/COM. An attacker would abuse this bug by sending the targeted user a maliciously crafted file and then convincing them, to quote the bulletin, “to manipulate the specially crafted file, but not necessarily click or open the malicious file.” The DWM Core Library issue has a lower 7.8 base CVSS – and shares the stage with three other fixes addressing that component – but the list of credited finders is various and startling, including researchers from Kaspersky, Google Threat Analysis Group, Google Mandiant, and DBAPPSecurity WeBin Lab.
CVE-2024-30050 – Windows Mark of the Web Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability
April showers may be over, but the steady pitter-pat of Mark of the Web issues continues. This one’s Moderate in impact and limited in scope – a successful attack would lead to limited losses of integrity and availability of security features that rely on MotW, including Protected Mode in Office. Still, Microsoft assesses this one to be more likely to be exploited within the next 30 days, and the uses of a vulnerability like this in a chained attack should be kept in mind. Sophos has developed Intercept X/Endpoint IPS and XGS Firewall protections against this issue, as covered in the table below.
CVE-2024-30044 – Microsoft SharePoint Server Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
The month’s sole Critical-severity vulnerability affects SharePoint and is believed by Microsoft to be more likely to see exploitation in the next 30 days. Once again, Sophos has developed Intercept X/Endpoint IPS and XGS Firewall protections against this issue, as covered in the table below.

Figure 3: RCE issues continue to outpace all other types of vulnerability in 2024
Sophos protections

CVE
Sophos Intercept X/Endpoint IPS
Sophos XGS Firewall

CVE-2024-29996
Exp/2429996-A
Exp/2429996-A

CVE-2024-30025
Exp/2430025-A
Exp/2430025-A

CVE-2024-30032
Exp/2430032-A
Exp/2430032-A

CVE-2024-30034
Exp/2430034-A
Exp/2430034-A

CVE-2024-30035
Exp/2430035-A
Exp/2430035-A

CVE-2024-30037
Exp/2430037-A
Exp/2430037-A

CVE-2024-30044
Exp/2430044-A, sid:2309589
sid:2309589

CVE-2024-30050
sid:2309595
sid:2309595

As you can every month, if you don’t want to wait for your system to pull down Microsoft’s updates itself, you can download them manually from the Windows Update Catalog website. Run the winver.exe tool to determine which build of Windows 10 or 11 you’re running, then download the Cumulative Update package for your specific system’s architecture and build number.
Appendix A: Vulnerability Impact and Severity
This is a list of May patches sorted by impact, then sub-sorted by severity. Each list is further arranged by CVE.
Remote Code Execution (25 CVEs)

Critical severity

CVE-2024-30044
Microsoft SharePoint Server Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

Important severity

CVE-2024-29997
Windows Mobile Broadband Driver Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

CVE-2024-29998
Windows Mobile Broadband Driver Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

CVE-2024-29999
Windows Mobile Broadband Driver Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

CVE-2024-30000
Windows Mobile Broadband Driver Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

CVE-2024-30001
Windows Mobile Broadband Driver Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

CVE-2024-30002
Windows Mobile Broadband Driver Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

CVE-2024-30003
Windows Mobile Broadband Driver Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

CVE-2024-30004
Windows Mobile Broadband Driver Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

CVE-2024-30005
Windows Mobile Broadband Driver Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

CVE-2024-30006
Microsoft WDAC OLE DB provider for SQL Server Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

CVE-2024-30009
Windows Routing and Remote Access Service (RRAS) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

CVE-2024-30010
Windows Hyper-V Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

CVE-2024-30012
Windows Mobile Broadband Driver Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

CVE-2024-30014
Windows Routing and Remote Access Service (RRAS) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

CVE-2024-30015
Windows Routing and Remote Access Service (RRAS) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

CVE-2024-30017
Windows Hyper-V Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

CVE-2024-30020
Windows Cryptographic Services Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

CVE-2024-30021
Windows Mobile Broadband Driver Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

CVE-2024-30022
Windows Routing and Remote Access Service (RRAS) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

CVE-2024-30023
Windows Routing and Remote Access Service (RRAS) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

CVE-2024-30024
Windows Routing and Remote Access Service (RRAS) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

CVE-2024-30029
Windows Routing and Remote Access Service (RRAS) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

CVE-2024-30042
Microsoft Excel Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

CVE-2024-30045
.NET and Visual Studio Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

Elevation of Privilege (17 CVEs)

Important severity

CVE-2024-26238
Microsoft PLUGScheduler Scheduled Task Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability

CVE-2024-29994
Microsoft Windows SCSI Class System File Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability

CVE-2024-29996
Windows Common Log File System Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability

CVE-2024-30007
Microsoft Brokering File System Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability

CVE-2024-30018
Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability

CVE-2024-30025
Windows Common Log File System Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability

CVE-2024-30027
NTFS Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability

CVE-2024-30028
Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability

CVE-2024-30030
Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability

CVE-2024-30031
Windows CNG Key Isolation Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability

CVE-2024-30032
Windows DWM Core Library Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability

CVE-2024-30033
Windows Search Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability

CVE-2024-30035
Windows DWM Core Library Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability

CVE-2024-30037
Windows Common Log File System Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability

CVE-2024-30038
Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability

CVE-2024-30049
Windows Win32 Kernel Subsystem Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability

CVE-2024-30051
Windows DWM Core Library Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability

Information Disclosure (7 CVEs)

Important severity

CVE-2024-30008
Windows DWM Core Library Information Disclosure Vulnerability

CVE-2024-30016
Windows Cryptographic Services Information Disclosure Vulnerability

CVE-2024-30034
Windows Cloud Files Mini Filter Driver Information Disclosure Vulnerability

CVE-2024-30036
Windows Deployment Services Information Disclosure Vulnerability

CVE-2024-30039
Windows Remote Access Connection Manager Information Disclosure Vulnerability

CVE-2024-30043
Microsoft SharePoint Server Information Disclosure Vulnerability

CVE-2024-30054
Microsoft Power BI Client Javascript SDK Information Disclosure Vulnerability

Spoofing (4 CVEs)

Important severity

CVE-2024-30041
Microsoft Bing Search Spoofing Vulnerability

CVE-2024-30047
Dynamics 365 Customer Insights Spoofing Vulnerability

CVE-2024-30048
Dynamics 365 Customer Insights Spoofing Vulnerability

CVE-2024-30053
Azure Migrate Cross-Site Scripting Vulnerability

Denial of Service (3 CVEs)

Important severity

CVE-2024-30011
Windows Hyper-V Denial of Service Vulnerability

CVE-2024-30019
DHCP Server Service Denial of Service Vulnerability

CVE-2024-30046
Visual Studio Denial of Service Vulnerability

Security Feature Bypass (2 CVEs)

Important severity

CVE-2024-30040
Windows MSHTML Platform Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability

Moderate severity

CVE-2024-30050
Windows Mark of the Web Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability

Tampering (1 CVE)

Important severity

CVE-2024-30059
Microsoft Intune for Android Mobile Application Management Tampering Vulnerability

Appendix B: Exploitability
This is a list of the May CVEs already under exploit in the wild, and those judged by Microsoft to be more likely to be exploited in the wild within the first 30 days post-release. The list is arranged by CVE.

Exploitation detected

CVE-2024-30040
Windows MSHTML Platform Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability

CVE-2024-30051
Windows DWM Core Library Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability

Exploitation more likely within the next 30 days

CVE-2024-29996
Windows Common Log File System Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability

CVE-2024-30025
Windows Common Log File System Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability

CVE-2024-30032
Windows DWM Core Library Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability

CVE-2024-30034
Windows Cloud Files Mini Filter Driver Information Disclosure Vulnerability

CVE-2024-30035
Windows DWM Core Library Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability

CVE-2024-30037
Windows Common Log File System Driver Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability

CVE-2024-30038
Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability

CVE-2024-30044
Microsoft SharePoint Server Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

CVE-2024-30049
Windows Win32 Kernel Subsystem Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability

CVE-2024-30050
Windows Mark of the Web Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability

Appendix C: Products Affected
This is a list of May’s patches sorted by product family, then sub-sorted by severity. Each list is further arranged by CVE. Patches that are shared among multiple product families are listed multiple times, once for each product family.
Windows (48 CVEs)