ChangeBASE Exchange

With this April Microsoft Patch Tuesday update, we see a set of 6 updates; 4 with the rating of Critical, and 2 with the rating of Important. As seen in March, Microsoft has released another relatively small update, and again, the potential compatibility impact for these updates is likely to be low.

The Patch Tuesday Security Update analysis performed by the ChangeBASE team identified a small number of potential compatibility issues across the thousands of applications included in testing for this release, and these relating only to Update MS12-024, where vulnerability in Windows could allow remote code execution. However, while the issues identified would require manual remediation, the total number of applications in the test sample which could be affected was less than 1%.

Given the nature of the changes and updates included in each of these patches, most systems will require a reboot to successfully implement any and all of the patches and updates released in this April Patch Tuesday release cycle.

Sample Results

Here is a sample of the results for one application and a summary of the Patch Tuesday results for one of our ChangeBASE Sample databases.

MS12-024: Vulnerability in Windows Could Allow Remote Code Execution

Here is a sample Summary report for a sample database where the Quest ChangeBASE Patch Impact team has run the latest Microsoft Updates against a test application portfolio:

Testing Summary

MS12-023	Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer (2675157)
MS12-024	Vulnerability in Windows Could Allow Remote Code Execution (2653956)
MS12-025	Vulnerability in .NET Framework Could Allow Remote Code
MS12-026	Vulnerabilities in Forefront Unified Access Gateway (UAG) Could Allow Information Disclosure (2663860)
MS12-027	Vulnerability in Windows Common Controls Could Allow Remote Code Execution (2664258)
MS12-028	Vulnerability in Microsoft Office Could Allow Remote Code Execution (2639185)

Quest ChangeBASE RAG Report Summary

Security Update Detailed Summary

MS12-023	Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer (2675157)
Description	This security update resolves five privately reported vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer. The most severe vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if a user views a specially crafted webpage using Internet Explorer. An attacker who successfully exploited any of these vulnerabilities could gain the same user rights as the current user. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights.
Payload	n/a
Impact	Critical - Remote Code Execution

MS12-024	Vulnerability in Windows Could Allow Remote Code Execution (2653956)
Description	This security update resolves a privately reported vulnerability in Microsoft Windows. The vulnerability could allow remote code execution if a user or application runs or installs a specially crafted, signed portable executable (PE) file on an affected system.
Payload	Imagehlp.dll, Wintrust.dll
Impact	Critical - Remote Code Execution

MS12-025	Vulnerability in .NET Framework Could Allow Remote Code
Description	This security update resolves one privately reported vulnerability in Microsoft .NET Framework. The vulnerability could allow remote code execution on a client system if a user views a specially crafted webpage using a web browser that can run XAML Browser Applications (XBAPs). Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights. The vulnerability could also allow remote code execution on a server system running IIS, if that server allows processing ASP.NET pages and an attacker succeeds in uploading a specially crafted ASP.NET page to that server and then executes the page, as could be the case in a web hosting scenario. This vulnerability could also be used by Windows .NET applications to bypass Code Access Security (CAS) restrictions. In a web browsing attack scenario, an attacker could host a website that contains a webpage that is used to exploit this vulnerability. In addition, compromised websites and websites that accept or host user-provided content or advertisements could contain specially crafted content that could exploit this vulnerability. In all cases, however, an attacker would have no way to force users to visit these websites. Instead, an attacker would have to convince users to visit the website, typically by getting them to click a link in an email message or Instant Messenger message that takes users to the attacker's website.
Payload	n/a
Impact	Critical - Remote Code Execution

MS12-026	Vulnerabilities in Forefront Unified Access Gateway (UAG) Could Allow Information Disclosure (2663860)
Description	This security update resolves two privately reported vulnerabilities in Microsoft Forefront Unified Access Gateway (UAG). The more severe of the vulnerabilities could allow information disclosure if an attacker sends a specially crafted query to the UAG server.
Payload	Adfs.internalsite.inc, Adfs.redirecttoorigurl.asp, Adfs.utils.inc, Agent_lin_helper.jar, Agent_mac_helper.jar, Agent_win_helper.jar, Certifiedendpointenrollment.utils.inc, Configmgrcore.dll, Internalsite.inc, Internalsite.utils.inc, Internalsitesharepoint.inc, Microsoftclient.jar, Monitor.applicationlist.asp, Monitor.applicationmonitor.asp, Monitor.applicationmonitorlinerefresh.asp, Monitor.applicationstatisticsresults.asp, Monitor.applicationuserstatistics.asp, Monitor.damonitorcurrentstatus.asp, Monitor.default.asp, Monitor.eventreport.asp, Monitor.eventviewer.asp, Monitor.eventviewerrefresh.asp, Monitor.exceltable.asp, Monitor.farmmonitor.asp, Monitor.global.asa, Monitor.inc.general.inc, Monitor.inc.selectsessiontrunks.inc, Monitor.inc.utils.inc, Monitor.naptseventreport.asp, Monitor.nlbmonitor.asp, Monitor.sessionlist.asp, Monitor.sessionmonitor.asp, Monitor.sessionmonitordatabuilder.asp, Monitor.sessionparameters.asp, Monitor.sessionstatisticsresults.asp, Monitor.statisticsgraphdata.asp, Monitor.userlist.asp, Monitor.usermonitor.asp, Monitor.usermonitordatabuilder.asp, Monitor.usersessionstatistics.asp, Monitor.userstatistics.asp, Monitor.userstatisticsresults.asp, Oesislocal.jar, Otp.internalsite.inc, Otp.utils.inc, Otp.whlclientinst.inc, Redirect.asp, Redirecttoorigurl.asp, Uninstalluagupdate.cmd, Whlfiltauthorization.dll, Whlfilter.dll
Impact	Important - Information Disclosure

MS12-027	Vulnerability in Windows Common Controls Could Allow Remote Code Execution (2664258)
Description	This security update resolves a privately disclosed vulnerability in Windows common controls. The vulnerability could allow remote code execution if a user visits a website containing specially crafted content designed to exploit the vulnerability. In all cases, however, an attacker would have no way to force users to visit such a website. Instead, an attacker would have to convince users to visit the website, typically by getting them to click a link in an email message or Instant Messenger message that takes them to the attacker's website. The malicious file could be sent as an email attachment as well, but the attacker would have to convince the user to open the attachment in order to exploit the vulnerability.
Payload	n/a
Impact	Critical - Remote Code Execution

MS12-028	Vulnerability in Microsoft Office Could Allow Remote Code Execution (2639185)
Description	This security update resolves a privately reported vulnerability in Microsoft Office and Microsoft Works. The vulnerability could allow remote code execution if a user opens a specially crafted Works file. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could gain the same user rights as the current user. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights.
Payload	n/a
Impact	Important - Remote Code Execution

*All results are based on a ChangeBASE Application Compatibility Lab’s test portfolio of over 1,000 applications.

Thursday 5 April 2012

App Compat Industry News

All the latest from the industry compiled by the team at ChangeBASE - and don't miss the Silly Corner!

Platform News

Test Windows 8 virtually on physical hardware with a bootable VHD

Mounting WIM files in Windows 8

Windows 8 smartscreen prevents apps with a poor reputation from running

Windows Performance Monitor Disk Counters Explained

How the clipboard in Windows works (at a seriously low-level)

Welcome to the Post PC Era

Need a CMD prompt? Ctrl-Shift-Esc, Alt-F, Ctrl-Enter

Rainbow, Nature and Moon desktop themes for Windows 7

Virtualisation News

App-V 4.6 SP2 Beta released

XenServer 6.0.2.1 is available for download

XenApp / XenDesktop best practices guide

Download, print and hang on your wall the Windows Server “8” Beta Hyper-V Component Architecture Poster

Packaging News

Process Monitor has a new major version, 3.0. It now has bookmarking support enabling you to navigate better through log files

.NET Framework Setup Verification Tool tests to see which versions are correctly installed

Browser News

This article on how Chrome is more popular at weekends than IE contains some useful website<->browser incompatibilities in the comments.

How browsers cheat the usage data

HTTP 2.0 to make the web faster

IE10 Websockets

How IE10 memory protection keeps the hackers out

IE the browseryoulovedtohate. “The only thing it is good for is downloading other browsers”

A real-time website compatibility testing tool for Chrome and Firefox

Mobile News

The British lead the way in Europe for accessing news from their phones

Windows Phone 7 is now outselling Symbian

Migration News

The four stages to application readiness

Windows 8: Application Compatibility and Certification

Cloud News

How to build a Windows Server 8 private cloud

Office News

A series of free (recorded) 15 minute webinars on using Office more effectively

Office 15 Agaves

Migrating to Office 365

Silly Corner

Bat Phone vs iPhone

Intel have taken a 10 year old music video and made it reality

The 1935 iPhone

Tuesday 13 March 2012

Microsoft Patch Tuesday Report from Quest ChangeBASE : March 13

Application Compatibility Update with Quest ChangeBASE

Executive Summary

With this March Microsoft Patch Tuesday update, we see a set of 6 updates; 1 with the rating of Critical, 4 with the rating of Important and 1 with that of Moderate. This is a relatively small update from Microsoft, and the potential compatibility impact for these updates is likely to be low.

Notably, the Patch Tuesday Security Update analysis performed by the ChangeBASE team has not identified any compatibility issues across the thousands of applications included in testing for this release. This makes us confident that this set of patches may be deployed with low risk of issue across the entire application portfolio.

Sample Results

Here is a sample Summary report for a sample database where the Quest ChangeBASE Patch Impact team has run the latest Microsoft Updates against a test application portfolio. As you can see, no issues have been detected:

Testing Summary

MS12-017	Vulnerability in DNS Server Could Allow Denial of Service (2647170)
MS12-018	Vulnerability in Windows Kernel-Mode Drivers Could Allow Elevation of Privilege (2641653)
MS12-019	Vulnerability in in DirectWrite Could Allow Denial of Service
MS12-020	Vulnerabilities in Remote Desktop Could Allow Remote Code Execution (2671387)
MS12-021	Vulnerability in Visual Studio Could Allow Elevation of Privilege (2651019)
MS12-022	Vulnerability in Expression Design Could Allow Remote Code Execution (2651018)

Quest ChangeBASE RAG Report Summary

Security Update Detailed Summary

MS12-017	Vulnerability in DNS Server Could Allow Denial of Service (2647170)
Description	This security update resolves a privately reported vulnerability in Microsoft Windows. The vulnerability could allow denial of service if a remote unauthenticated attacker sends a specially crafted DNS query to the target DNS server.
Payload	Afd.sys, Dns.exe, Dnsperf.dll, Dnsperf.h, Dnsperf.ini, Mswsock.dll, Tcpip.sys, Tcpip6.sys, W03a3409.dll, Wdnsperf.dll, Wmswsock.dll, Ww03a3409.dll
Impact	Important - Denial of Service

MS12-018	Vulnerability in Windows Kernel-Mode Drivers Could Allow Elevation of Privilege (2641653)
Description	This security update resolves a privately reported vulnerability in Microsoft Windows. The vulnerability could allow elevation of privilege if an attacker logs on to a system and runs a specially crafted application. An attacker must have valid logon credentials and be able to log on locally to exploit this vulnerability.
Payload	Win32k.sys
Impact	Important - Elevation of Privilege

MS12-019	Vulnerability in DirectWrite Could Allow Denial of Service
Description	Could Allow Denial of Service (2665364)
Payload	D2d1.dll, Dwrite.dll, D3d10_1.dll, D3d10_1core.dll, D3d10warp.dll
Impact	Moderate - Denial of Service

MS12-020	Vulnerabilities in Remote Desktop Could Allow Remote Code Execution (2671387)
Description	This security update resolves two privately reported vulnerabilities in the Remote Desktop Protocol. The more severe of these vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if an attacker sends a sequence of specially crafted RDP packets to an affected system. By default, the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) is not enabled on any Windows operating system. Systems that do not have RDP enabled are not at risk.
Payload	Rdpwd.sys
Impact	Critical - Remote Code Execution

MS12-021	Vulnerability in Visual Studio Could Allow Elevation of Privilege (2651019)
Description	This security update resolves one privately reported vulnerability in Visual Studio. The vulnerability could allow elevation of privilege if an attacker places a specially crafted add-in in the path used by Visual Studio and convinces a user with higher privileges to start Visual Studio. An attacker must have valid logon credentials and be able to log on locally to exploit this vulnerability. The vulnerability could not be exploited remotely or by anonymous users.
Payload	Vsaenv.exe, BaseConfig.pkgdef, BaseConfig.pkgdef.version
Impact	Important - Elevation of Privilege

MS12-022	Vulnerability in Expression Design Could Allow Remote Code Execution (2651018)
Description	This security update resolves one privately reported vulnerability in Microsoft Expression Design. The vulnerability could allow remote code execution if a user opens a legitimate file (such as an .xpr or .DESIGN file) that is located in the same network directory as a specially crafted dynamic link library (DLL) file. Then, while opening the legitimate file, Microsoft Expression Design could attempt to load the DLL file and execute any code it contained. For an attack to be successful, a user must visit an untrusted remote file system location or WebDAV share and open a legitimate file (such as an .xpr or .DESIGN file) from this location that is then loaded by a vulnerable application.
Payload	No specific file payload
Impact	Important - Remote Code Execution

*All results are based on a ChangeBASE Application Compatibility Lab’s test portfolio of over 1,000 applications.