Microsoft Patch Tuesday, November 2016

The November Patch Tuesday is here and it's a big one with 14 bulletins covering 68 unique CVEs. Despite the large volume of patches, this patch cycle still promises to be less painful than Election Day here in the USA. Over all we have six bulletins rated Critical and eight rated Important. The Critical bulletins affect the usual suspects like Internet Explorer and Edge, GDI and Adobe Flash, but several components we rarely see also make an appearance including remote code execution vulnerabilities in Microsoft Video Control and Microsoft Windows core OS.

The big vulnerability that was patched this month was CVE-2016-7255. CVE-2016-7255 is a Windows local privilege escalation vulnerability exploited as part of a zero day campaign discovered in the wild. It was being exploited in conjunction with a separate zero day vulnerability in Adobe Flash (CVE-2016-7855) that was patched last week.

Google discovered these zero days toward the end of October and alerted both Adobe and Microsoft (). The Flash vulnerability was used for the arbitrary code execution and the Windows vulnerability was used to escalate the arbitrary code execution to Admin or root status.

While Adobe issued a patch almost immediately, Microsoft was not able to before Google disclosed the vulnerability publicly. The fact that these vulnerabilities were being actively exploited "in the wild" changed Google's typical disclosure timeline. Based on their disclosure policy Google gives vendors 60 days to patch any vulnerability they discovered privately, but any vulnerability discovered being actively exploited in the wild has a more escalated timeline of seven days.

Here at Trustwave we have a similar policy. If people are being actively exploited due to buggy code in your software than I think a week before disclosing those details is more than fair. Even without a vendor patch, detailed technical guidance can provide work-arounds like software to disable or Indicators of Compromise (IoCs) to monitor for.

MS16-129
CVE-2016-7196, CVE-2016-7198, CVE-2016-7200, CVE-2016-7201, CVE-2016-7203, CVE-2016-7242, CVE-2016-7195, CVE-2016-7199, CVE-2016-7202, CVE-2016-7204, CVE-2016-7208, CVE-2016-7209, CVE-2016-7227, CVE-2016-7239, CVE-2016-7240, CVE-2016-7241, CVE-2016-7243
Critical
Cumulative Security Update for Microsoft Edge

This security update resolves vulnerabilities in Microsoft Edge. The most severe of the vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if a user views a specially crafted webpage using Microsoft Edge. An attacker who successfully exploited the vulnerabilities could gain the same user rights as the current user. Customers whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users with administrative user rights.

This security update is rated Critical for Microsoft Edge on Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016.

MS16-130
CVE-2016-7212, CVE-2016-7221, CVE-2016-7222
Critical
Security Update for Microsoft Windows

This security update resolves vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows. The most severe of the vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if a locally authenticated attacker runs a specially crafted application.

This security update is rated Critical for all supported releases of Microsoft Windows

MS16-131
CVE-2016-7248
Critical
Security Update for Microsoft Video Control

This security update resolves a vulnerability in Microsoft Windows. The vulnerability could allow remote code execution when Microsoft Video Control fails to properly handle objects in memory. An attacker who successfully exploited the vulnerability could run arbitrary code in the context of the current user. However, an attacker must first convince a user to open either a specially crafted file or a program from either a webpage or an email message.

This security update is rated Critical for Microsoft Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8.1, Windows RT 8.1, Windows 10, and Windows Server 2016.

MS16-132
CVE-2016-7205, CVE-2016-7210, CVE-2016-7217, CVE-2016-7256
Critical
Security Update for Microsoft Graphics Component

This security update resolves vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows. The most severe being of the vulnerabilities could allow a remote code execution vulnerability exists when the Windows Animation Manager improperly handles objects in memory if a user visits a malicious webpage. An attacker who successfully exploited the vulnerability could install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights.

This security update is rated Critical for all supported releases of Microsoft Windows.

MS16-133
CVE-2016-7213, CVE-2016-7228, CVE-2016-7229, CVE-2016-7230, CVE-2016-7231, CVE-2016-7232, CVE-2016-7233, CVE-2016-7234, CVE-2016-7235, CVE-2016-7236, CVE-2016-7244, CVE-2016-7245
Important
Security Update for Microsoft Office

This security update resolves vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office. The most severe of the vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if a user opens a specially crafted Microsoft Office file. An attacker who successfully exploited the vulnerabilities could run arbitrary code in the context of the current user. Customers whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than those who operate with administrative user rights.

See full Microsoft bulletin for affected versions of Microsoft Office.

MS16-134
CVE-2016-0026, CVE-2016-3332, CVE-2016-3333, CVE-2016-3334, CVE-2016-3335, CVE-2016-3338, CVE-2016-3340, CVE-2016-3342, CVE-2016-3343, CVE-2016-7184
Important
Security Update for Common Log File System Driver

This security update resolves vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows. The vulnerability could allow elevation of privilege when the Windows Common Log File System (CLFS) driver improperly handles objects in memory. In a local attack scenario, an attacker could exploit these vulnerabilities by running a specially crafted application to take complete control over the affected system. An attacker who successfully exploits this vulnerability could run processes in an elevated context.

This security update is rated Important for all supported releases of Microsoft Windows.

MS16-135
CVE-2016-7214, CVE-2016-7215, CVE-2016-7218, CVE-2016-7255
Important
Security Update for Kernel-Mode Drivers

This security update resolves vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows. The most severe of the vulnerabilities could allow elevation of privilege if an attacker logs on to an affected system and runs a specially crafted application that could exploit the vulnerabilities and take control of an affected system.

This security update is rated Important for all supported releases of Windows.

MS16-136
CVE-2016-7249, CVE-2016-7250, CVE-2016-7251, CVE-2016-7252, CVE-2016-7253, CVE-2016-7254
Important
Security Update for SQL Server

This security update resolves vulnerabilities in Microsoft SQL Server. The most severe vulnerabilities could allow an attacker could to gain elevated privileges that could be used to view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts. The security update addresses these most severe vulnerabilities by correcting how SQL Server handles pointer casting.

This security update is rated Important for supported editions of Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Service Packs 2 and 3, Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Service Packs 1 and 2, and Microsoft SQL Server 2016.

MS16-137
CVE-2016-7220, CVE-2016-7237, CVE-2016-7238
Important
Security Update for Windows Authentication Methods

This security update resolves vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows. The more severe of the vulnerabilities could allow elevation of privilege. To exploit this vulnerability, the attacker would first need to authenticate to the target, domain-joined system using valid user credentials. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could elevate their permissions from unprivileged user account to administrator. The attacker could then install programs; view, change or delete data; or create new accounts. The attacker could subsequently attempt to elevate by locally executing a specially crafted application designed to manipulate NTLM password change requests.

This security update is rated Important for all supported releases of Microsoft Windows

MS16-138
CVE-2016-7223, CVE-2016-7224, CVE-2016-7225, CVE-2016-7226
Important
Security Update to Microsoft Virtual Hard Drive

This security update resolves vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows. The Windows VHDMP kernel driver improperly handles user access to certain files. An attacker could manipulate files in locations not intended to be available to the user by exploiting this vulnerability.

This security update is rated Important for of Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows RT 8.1, Windows 10, and Windows Server 2016.

MS16-139
CVE-2016-7216
Important
Security Update for Windows Kernel

This security update resolves a vulnerability in Microsoft Windows. The vulnerability could allow elevation of privilege if an attacker runs a specially crafted application to access sensitive information. A locally authenticated attacker could attempt to exploit this vulnerability by running a specially crafted application. An attacker can gain access to information not intended to be available to the user by using this method.

This security update is rated Important for Microsoft Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008 R2 (and Server Core)

MS16-140
CVE-2016-7247
Important
Security Update For Boot Manager

This security update resolves a vulnerability in Microsoft Windows. The vulnerability could allow security feature bypass if a physically-present attacker installs an affected boot policy.

This security update is rated Important for all supported editions of Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows RT 8.1, Windows 10, and Windows Server 2016.

MS16-141
APSB16-37
Critical
Security Update for Adobe Flash Player

This security update resolves vulnerabilities in Adobe Flash Player when installed on all supported editions of Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows RT 8.1, Windows 10, and Windows Server 2016.

This security update is rated Critical. The update addresses the vulnerabilities in Adobe Flash Player by updating the affected Adobe Flash libraries contained within Internet Explorer 10, Internet Explorer 11, and Microsoft Edge.

MS16-142
CVE-2016-7196, CVE-2016-7198, CVE-2016-7195, CVE-2016-7199, CVE-2016-7227, CVE-2016-7239, CVE-2016-7241
Critical
Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer

This security update resolves vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer. The most severe of the vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if a user views a specially crafted webpage using Internet Explorer. An attacker who successfully exploited the vulnerabilities could gain the same user rights as the current user. If the current user is logged on with administrative user rights, an attacker could take control of an affected system. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights.

This security update is rated Critical for Internet Explorer 9 (IE 9), and Internet Explorer 11 (IE 11) on affected Windows clients, and Moderate for Internet Explorer 9 (IE 9), Internet Explorer 10 (IE 10), and Internet Explorer 11 (IE 11) on affected Windows servers.