Azure Virtual Machines - Patch Them Now

Many Microsoft customers use Azure to host databases, line of business applications, virtual machines, storage and more. Setting up new virtual machines of almost any size is a quick operation inside the admin interface. However, it could be considered too easy in some organizations, and quite quickly, an IT or infrastructure team might end up with dozens or hundreds of virtual machines.

If your organization has deployed multiple virtual machines, you should check them and patch them as soon as possible. If you're running Linux VMs, you need to take action to protect those machines against the four OMIGOD issues in the Open Management Infrastructure (OMI) framework. The open-source framework is not something that you choose when deploying the virtual machine. The OMI agent is automatically deployed, without your knowledge, when certain Azure services are enabled.

The four OMIGOD issues are rated between 7/10 and 9.8/10, so it is something you should address as soon as possible.

For the latest information and advice from Microsoft, take a look at this article. For information from the group that originally reported the issues, take a look at this article.