Saint BlueKeep, Who Could Have Become a Worm

Patron of exposed Remote Desktop servers, systems past end of life, and patches released even for the departed.

Life

On 14 May 2019 Microsoft fixed BlueKeep (CVE-2019-0708), a flaw in Remote Desktop Services that an attacker could exploit without authentication, remotely, with nothing but the RDP port open. It was "wormable": able to spread on its own from machine to machine, as WannaCry had. The fear was such that Microsoft shipped updates even for Windows XP and 2003, long out of support.

Prayer

O Saint BlueKeep, who could have crawled from server to server, let our remote desktops ask who is knocking before they open. Amen.

How to celebrate

Celebrated by installing the May 2019 patch, enabling Network Level Authentication and taking RDP off the Internet.

Open RDP port, worm at the door.