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.
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 March Patch Tuesday release cycle.
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.
