Microsoft July 2012 Black Tuesday Update - Overview

Published: 2012-07-10. Last Updated: 2012-07-10 22:21:57 UTC
by Swa Frantzen (Version: 2)
12 comment(s)

Overview of the July 2012 Microsoft patches and their status.

# Affected Contra Indications - KB Known Exploits Microsoft rating(**) ISC rating(*)
clients servers
MS12â??043 The well know memory corruption vulnerability in Microsoft XML Core Services (MSXML). Note that the updates for XML core services 5.0 are still missing.
Replaces MS08-069 and MS10-051.
XML core services

CVEâ??2012â??1889		 KB 2722479 The patch for the problem first described in SA 2719615. Is used according to Microsoft in limited targeted attacks. Severity:Critical
Exploitability:1		 PATCH NOW Important
MS12â??044 The usual MSIE cumulative patch fixing an additional 2 vulnerabilities that allow random code execution with the rights of the logged on user.
Replaces MS12-037.
MSIE

CVEâ??2012â??1522
CVEâ??2012â??1524		 KB 2719177 No publicly known exploits Severity:Critical
Exploitability:1		 Critical Important
MS12â??045 An vulnerability in ActiveX Data Objects (ADO), part of Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC), allows random code execution with the rights of the logged on user.
MDAC

CVEâ??2012â??1891		 KB 2698365 No publicly known exploits Severity:Critical
Exploitability:1		 Critical Important
MS12â??046 A vulnerability in how Visual Basic for Applications loads DLLs allows random code execution with the rights of the logged on user. This is one more in a long list of bulletins that are related to Security Advisory 2269637.
This can be attacked through webdav or other file sharing methods.
Note that -as is usually the case with VBA- there might still be vulnerable VBE6.dll files lingering on patched systems as Microsoft does not patch all vulnerable dll's installed by third parties.
VBA

CVEâ??2012â??1854		 KB 2707960
 Is used according to Microsoft in limited targeted attacks.
Symantec confirms exploitation.		 Severity:Important
Exploitability:1		 PATCH NOW Important
MS12â??047 Multiple vulnerabilities in the windows kernel mode drivers allow escalation of privileges.
Replaces MS12-041.
Windows kernel mode drivers

CVEâ??2012â??1890
CVEâ??2012â??1893		 KB 2718523 No publicly known exploits; Microsoft claims CVE-2012-1890 was publicly released. Severity:Important
Exploitability:1		 Important Important
MS12â??048 A vulnerability in handling file and directory names allows random code execution.
Can be exploited by as little as opening an attachment of an email.
Replaces MS10-046.
Windows shell

CVEâ??2012â??0175		 KB 2691442
 No publicly known exploits Severity:Important
Exploitability:1		 Critical Critical
MS12â??049 A TLS protocol vulnerability relating to CBC cyphers that allows the encryption to be broken. Relates to the Windows Secure Channel (SChannel) and the Cryptography API: Next Generation (CNG) components.
Replaces MS10-049, MS12-006 and MS10-085.
TLS

CVEâ??2012â??1870		 KB 2655992
 Microsoft claims CVE-2012-1870 is public and that proof of concept code was released. Severity:Important
Exploitability:3		 Critical Critical
MS12â??050 Multiple vulnerabilities in Sharepoint, InfoPath and Groove Server allow escalation of privileges.
CVE-2012-1858 was already discussed and fixed in MS12-037 and MS12-039 last month.
Replaces MS11-074.
Sharepoint

CVEâ??2012â??1858
CVEâ??2012â??1859
CVEâ??2012â??1860
CVEâ??2012â??1861
CVEâ??2012â??1862
CVEâ??2012â??1863		 KB 2695502
 CVE-2012-1858 was publicly discussed and fixed by Microsoft in last month's batch. Severity:Important
Exploitability:1		 N/A Important
MS12â??051 Folder permission problems in Office for Mac 2011 allows other users to cause unsuspecting users to execute code unintentionally. This upgrades Office 2011 for Mac to version 14.2.3 .
Replaces MS12-030.
Office for Mac

CVEâ??2012â??1894		 KB 2721015
 Microsoft claims the vulnerability was publicly discussed. Severity:Important
Exploitability:1		 Less Urgent Less Urgent
We will update issues on this page for about a week or so as they evolve.
We appreciate updates
US based customers can call Microsoft for free patch related support on 1-866-PCSAFETY
(*): ISC rating
  • We use 4 levels:
    • PATCH NOW: Typically used where we see immediate danger of exploitation. Typical environments will want to deploy these patches ASAP. Workarounds are typically not accepted by users or are not possible. This rating is often used when typical deployments make it vulnerable and exploits are being used or easy to obtain or make.
    • Critical: Anything that needs little to become "interesting" for the dark side. Best approach is to test and deploy ASAP. Workarounds can give more time to test.
    • Important: Things where more testing and other measures can help.
    • Less Urgent: Typically we expect the impact if left unpatched to be not that big a deal in the short term. Do not forget them however.
  • The difference between the client and server rating is based on how you use the affected machine. We take into account the typical client and server deployment in the usage of the machine and the common measures people typically have in place already. Measures we presume are simple best practices for servers such as not using outlook, MSIE, word etc. to do traditional office or leisure work.
  • The rating is not a risk analysis as such. It is a rating of importance of the vulnerability and the perceived or even predicted threat for affected systems. The rating does not account for the number of affected systems there are. It is for an affected system in a typical worst-case role.
  • Only the organization itself is in a position to do a full risk analysis involving the presence (or lack of) affected systems, the actually implemented measures, the impact on their operation and the value of the assets involved.
  • All patches released by a vendor are important enough to have a close look if you use the affected systems. There is little incentive for vendors to publicize patches that do not have some form of risk to them.

(**): The exploitability rating we show is the worst of them all due to the too large number of ratings Microsoft assigns to some of the patches.

--
Swa Frantzen -- Section 66

Keywords: Microsoft MSFT mspatchday Patch Tuesday patches
12 comment(s)

Comments

I assume we can uninstall the fix it from KB 2719615 after patching (with the exception of the one for XML Core Services 5.0)?

yvesk

Jul 10th 2012
1 decade ago

Keep an eye on MSXML 4.0 (look for %SystemRoot%\system32\msxml4.dll). I'm seeing a lot of systems with 4.0 SP2 (i.e. 4.20.9870.0, which was released as MS08-069). The bulletins imply that MS08-069 is replaced by this bulletin, but it appears that MS12-043 2721691 is only applicable to systems that were updated to 4.0 SP3, and I'm seeing at least some instances where Microsoft isn't advertising the 4.0 SP3 update through Windows Update.

Anonymous

Jul 10th 2012
1 decade ago

@Anonymous
My understanding is the MSXML 4.0 SP3 is the only supported version. The update from MSXML 4.0 SP2 did not always seem to happen automatically, so many people will be left unpatched.

David

Jul 11th 2012
1 decade ago

@yvesk
See: http://blogs.technet.com/b/srd/archive/2012/07/10/msxml-5-steps-to-stay-protected.aspx

David

Jul 11th 2012
1 decade ago

The "MSXML 4.0 SP3 Release Notes" state the following:
1. "Support will end for MSXML 4.0 SP2 in 4/13/2010".
2. "MSXML 4.0 SP3 is not installed or upgraded by default".
I agree with David: many people will be left unpatched.
How can the Windows world best be alerted to this issue?

Bob Hill

Jul 11th 2012
1 decade ago

I am confused the release notes for MSXML 4.0 SP3 say it has been superseded by MSXML 6.0 but the supported operating system listed under MSXML 6.0 do not mention Win 7.

Should I be pushing MSXML 6.0 or MSXML 4.0 SP3?

pwobbe

Jul 11th 2012
1 decade ago

@pwwobbe
MSXML 6.0 isn't a replacement for MSXML 4.0. If you have MSXML 4.0 installed for legacy applications, you should update to SP3. If you are developing with XML, you should use MSXML 6.0.

David

Jul 11th 2012
1 decade ago

MBSA 2.2 does NOT flag MSXML 4.0 SP2 as stale: My Win2003 R2 SP2/32-bit servers have msxml4.dll version 4.20.9876.0 , dated 7/21/2009, & have been scanned with MBSA-reliant tools for at least the past 3 years. At no time has MSXML 4sp3 been offered as an "optional" component by Microsoft Update.
I'd suggest that MS address this glaring omission by making a "detection update" such that 4SP3 plus its patches gets offered to systems with a prior version of msxml4.

DKay

Jul 11th 2012
1 decade ago

Note that on x64 systems one should look in %SystemRoot%\SysWOW64 as MSXML 4.0 is only available in a 32-bit variant.

Anonymous

Jul 11th 2012
1 decade ago

I'd like to see Microsoft provide a comprehensive list of the MSXML versions that the FixIt 50897 defended. If it only defends the most recent version of 4.0 SP3, then I suspect my systems have been vulnerable to the attacks on 4.0 SP2 for the last month despite deploying the FixIt. I suspect there that two variants of MSXML 4.0 SP2 are wide-spread - 4.0.9870.0 (which is the latest security patch for 4.0 SP2) and 4.0.9876.0 (which is the latest bugfix for 4.0 SP2).

Anonymous

Jul 11th 2012
1 decade ago

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