Windows DNS Server holds a seventeen-year-old significant vulnerability, which is named as wormable and has the most important possible risk score. Administrators should update Windows Server systems as soon as possible.

Today we released an update for CVE-2020-1350, a Critical Remote Code Execution (RCE) vulnerability in Windows DNS Server that is classified as a ‘wormable’ vulnerability and has a CVSS base score of 10.0. This issue results from a flaw in Microsoft’s DNS server role implementation and affects all Windows Server versions. Non-Microsoft DNS Servers are not affected.

Wormable vulnerabilities have the potential to spread via malware between vulnerable computers without user interaction. Windows DNS Server is a core networking component. While this vulnerability is not currently known to be used in active attacks, it is essential that customers apply Windows updates to address this vulnerability as soon as possible.

If applying the update quickly is not practical, a registry-based workaround is available that does not require restarting the server. The update and the workaround are both detailed in CVE-2020-1350.

Customers with automatic updates turned on do not need to take any additional action.

Microsoft warns of wormable vulnerability in Windows DNS Server