November 2015 Patch Tuesday

November’s Patch Tuesday offers 12 bulletins, four of which are critically rated. In total, 52 vulnerabilities were addressed with about 47% of these related to Internet Explorer. Windows 10 is issuing its anticipated Fall Update this month (Version 1511), so be sure to keep an eye out as this should be released this coming Thursday. MS15-112: Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer (3104517) This month’s IE patch clocks in with a whopping 25 fixes, breaking down to 23 memory corruption vulnerabilities with one occurring within the scripting engine (again), an information disclosure and an ASLR bypass vulnerability. The memory corruption vulnerabilities are the most severe, as they can potentially lead to code execution. Successful exploitation will gain the same rights as the current user, so this bulletin serves as a strong reminder to exercise the principal of least privileges whenever possible. MS15-113: Cumulative Security Update for Microsoft Edge (3104519) Edge is patched for 3 memory corruption vulnerabilities and an ASLR bypass. As was the case with IE, these memory corruption vulnerabilities provide opportunities for code execution and the typical attack scenario involves an attacker hosting a malicious website, convincing a victim to view it. MS15-114: Security Update for Windows Journal to Address Remote Code Execution (3100213) This bulletin resolves a heap overflow vulnerability within Windows Journal. In order to exploit this vulnerability, an attacker would need to convince a user to open a specially crafted Journal file which could lead to arbitrary code execution in the context of the current user. MS15-115: Security Update for Microsoft Windows to Address Remote Code Execution (3105864) The Windows Kernel is patched this month for 6 critical vulnerabilities, 2 of which can lead to remote code execution with full user rights. These vulnerabilities exist when the Adobe Type Manager Library improperly handles OpenType fonts. The other vulnerabilities include an elevation of privilege, 2 information disclosures, and a security feature bypass allowing an attacker to modify files outside a low integrity level application. MS15-116: Security Update for Microsoft Office to Address Remote Code Execution (3104540) Office receives its monthly dose of fixes, this time resolving 7 vulnerabilities, 5 of which are memory corruptions leading to remote code execution. The remaining two include an elevation of privilege and a spoofing vulnerability affecting Microsoft Outlook for Mac. The interesting thing about this month is the vast amount of software that is updated for the number of vulnerabilities. Seemingly, everything from Office 2007 to Office 2016 is affected, providing attackers with a broad area of attack surface. MS15-117: Security Update for NDIS to Address Elevation of Privilege (3101722) NDIS is patched for a vulnerability that occurs when the length of a buffer is not validated, prior to copying memory into it. Successful exploitation can lead to an elevation of privileges, however, an attacker must first gain user rights, log in to the system, and run a specially crafted application. MS15-118: Security Updates in .NET Framework to Address Elevation of Privilege (3104507) This bulletin resolves 3 vulnerabilities within the .NET Framework resulting in information disclosure, due to DTD parsing of XML files; elevation of privileges, caused by a cross-site scripting vulnerability within an HTTP request; and an ASLR bypass vulnerability, simply caused by a core DLL being compiled without ASLR protection. MS15-119: Security Update in Winsock to Address Elevation of Privilege (3104521) Winsock is patched for an elevation of privileges vulnerability that exists when a call to a memory address is made without verifying that the address is valid. To successfully exploit this, an attacker must first gain user rights, log in to the system, and run a specially crafted application. MS15-120: Security Update for IPSec to Address Denial of Service (3102939) This bulletin addresses an issue within IPSec, which can lead to a denial of service. The vulnerability exists due to the encryption negotiation being improperly handled, causing the system to become non-responsive. Prior to this bulletins release, the vulnerability had been publically disclosed, however Microsoft is not aware of any active attempts to exploit it. MS15-121: Security Update for Schannel to Address Spoofing (3081320) Schannel is patched for an interested vulnerability this month regarding its implementation of the TLS protocol. The issue is caused by a triple handshake vulnerability which can allow an attacker to perform man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks, impersonating the victim on any other server that uses the same credentials. The vulnerability was publically disclosed prior to this bulletins release, however, Microsoft is not aware of any active attempts to exploit it. MS15-122: Security Update for Kerberos to Address Security Feature Bypass (3105256) Kerberos is patched this month for a security feature bypass that exists when failing to check the password change of a user signing into a workstation. Successful exploitation can allow the attacker to unlock the workstation and decrypt drives protected by BitLocker. However, this can only occur on systems that have BitLocker enabled without a PIN of USB key. MS15-123: Security Update for Skype for Business and Lync to Address Information Disclosure (3105872) Lastly, Skype for Business and Lync are both patched for a security feature bypass that occurs when specially crafted content is not sanitized. This can lead to arbitrary HTML and JavaScript execution within the Skype for Business or Lync context.