The May 2022 Security Update Review

It’s the fifth second Tuesday of 2022, which also means it’s the also the fifth Patch Tuesday of the year, and it brings with it the latest security updates from Adobe and Microsoft. This is also the last release before Pwn2Own Vancouver, which means multiple participants will be holding their breath to see if their exploits still work or were patched out. Take a break from your regularly scheduled activities and join us as we review the details of their latest security offerings.

Adobe Patches for May 2022

For May, Adobe released five bulletins addressing 18 CVEs in Adobe CloudFusion, InCopy, Framemaker, InDesign, and Adobe Character Animator. A total of 17 of these CVEs were reported by ZDI vulnerability researcher Mat Powell. The largest of these patches is the fix for Framemaker with 10 CVEs in total. Nine of these are Critical-rated bugs that could lead to code execution, mostly due to Out-of-Bounds (OOB) Write vulnerabilities. The patch for InDesign addresses three Critical-rated bugs that could lead to code execution. Two of these are due to OOB Writes while one is an OOB Read. The patch for InCopy also fixes three Critical-rated code execution bugs. In this case, it’s two OOB Writes plus a Use-After-Free (UAF). The patch for Character Animator fixes a single, Critical-rated OOB Write code execution bug. Finally, the ColdFusion patch corrects an Important-rated reflected cross-site scripting (XSS) bug.

None of the bugs fixed by Adobe this month are listed as publicly known or under active attack at the time of release. Adobe categorizes all of these updates as priority 3.

Microsoft Patches for May 2022

For May, Microsoft released 74 new patches addressing CVEs in Microsoft Windows and Windows Components, .NET and Visual Studio, Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based), Microsoft Exchange Server, Office and Office Components, Windows Hyper-V, Windows Authentication Methods, BitLocker, Windows Cluster Shared Volume (CSV), Remote Desktop Client, Windows Network File System, NTFS, and Windows Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol. This is in addition to the 36 CVEs patched by Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based) in late April.

Of the 74 CVEs released today, seven are rated Critical, 66 are rated Important, and one is rated Low in severity. A total of seven of these bugs came through the ZDI program. Historically speaking, this volume is in line with May releases in the past, with 19 more than May 2021, but 5 less than May 2019. The entire 2020 release volume was somewhat of an anomaly, so comparisons there aren’t as useful.

One of the bugs released today is listed as publicly known and under active attack, while two others are listed as publicly known at the time of release. Let’s take a closer look at some of the more interesting updates for this month, starting with the vulnerability currently being exploited:

-       CVE-2022-26925 – Windows LSA Spoofing Vulnerability
This complex-sounding vulnerability could allow an unauthenticated attacker to force a domain controller to authenticate against another server using NTLM. The threat actor would need to be in the logical network path between the target and the resource requested (e.g., Man-in-the-Middle), but since this is listed as under active attack, someone must have figured out how to make that happen. Microsoft notes this would be a CVSS 9.8 if combined with NTLM relay attacks, making this even more severe. In addition to this patch, sysadmins should review KB5005413 and Advisory ADV210003 to see what additional measures can be taken to prevent NTLM relay attacks. Also note this patch affects some backup functionality on Server 2008 SP2. If you’re running that OS, read this one carefully to ensure your backups can still be used to restore.

 -       CVE-2022-26923 – Active Directory Domain Services Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability
This bug was submitted through the ZDI program by Oliver Lyak (@ly4k_) of the Institut for Cyber Risk. The specific flaw exists within the issuance of certificates. By including crafted data in a certificate request, an attacker can obtain a certificate that allows the attacker to authenticate to a domain controller with a high level of privilege. In essence, any domain authenticated user can become a domain admin if Active Directory Certificate Services are running on the domain. This is a very common deployment. Considering the severity of this bug and the relative ease of exploit, it would not surprise me to see active attacks using this technique sooner rather than later.

 -       CVE-2022-26937 – Windows Network File System Remote Code Execution Vulnerability
This CVSS 9.8-rated bug could allow remote, unauthenticated attackers to execute code in the context of the Network File System (NFS) service on affected systems. NFS isn’t on by default, but it’s prevalent in environments where Windows systems are mixed with other OSes such as Linux or Unix. If this describes your environment, you should definitely test and deploy this patch quickly. Microsoft notes NFSv4.1 is not exploitable, so upgrade from NFSv2 or NFSv3 if possible.

 -       CVE-2022-29972 – Insight Software: Magnitude Simba Amazon Redshift ODBC Driver
This update was actually released yesterday and is complicated enough for Microsoft to blog about the bug and how it affects multiple Microsoft services. Microsoft also released its first advisory of the year, ADV220001, with additional information about the vulnerability. The flaw exists in the third-party ODBC data connector used to connect to Amazon Redshift, in Integration Runtime (IR) in Azure Synapse Pipelines, and Azure Data Factory, and could allow an attacker to execute remote commands across Integration Runtimes. If you use these services, review the blog and advisory to ensure you understand the risks to your services.

Here’s the full list of CVEs released by Microsoft for May 2022:

Looking at the remaining Critical-rated patches, there are two that affect the Windows implementation of Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP) that could allow an RCE. Microsoft notes an attacker would need to win a race condition to successfully exploit these bugs, but not every race condition is identical. In other words, an attacker may pull a Rich Strike and win that race. There’s a Critical-rated Elevation of Privilege (EoP) bug in Microsoft Kerberos, but no further information is provided. It’s unusual for an EoP to be rated Critical, so the privilege escalation must result in something beyond just a domain account. Finally, there’s another patch for the RDP Client, which seem to be coming at least once a month these days. An attacker would need to convince an affected system to connect to a specially crafted RDP server to gain code execution.

There are 20 other patches for RCE bugs in this month’s release, and half of those deal with LDAP vulnerabilities. The most severe of these clocks in with a CVSS of 9.8 but would require the MaxReceiveBuffer LDAP policy to be set to a value higher than the default value. It’s not clear if that is a common or rare configuration. The others would require some form of authentication. Three of the remaining RCEs came through the ZDI program. ZDI vulnerability researcher Hossein Lotfi discovered a bug in Windows Media Foundation that exists within the parsing of AVI files. The research known as ZhangYang found a heap overflow bug in Visual Studio, and Uncodable reported a use-after-free (UAF) bug in the Windows Graphic component. The remaining RCE bugs require some form of user interaction – mostly clicking on a link or opening a file. The only exception to this is the bugs in SharePoint, which requires an authenticated user with page creation permissions. By default, any authenticated user can create their own site where they have the necessary permissions.   

Moving on to EoP-related patches, there are 21 total privilege escalation bugs in the release, including the two previously mentioned. Most of these require an attacker to log on a run their specially crafted code or somehow convince (or trick) an authorized user to do so. However, there are a couple of patches that stand out. The most obvious is the patch for Exchange Server, which requires an admin to specifically prepare Active Directory before installing the patch. This entails running specific commands from the command prompt once the patch has been downloaded. Microsoft doesn’t indicate what could happen if these steps are not followed, but the bug allows an Exchange admin to become a Domain Admin, so ensure you take the appropriate steps to fully remediate this vulnerability. There’s a privilege escalation in the Remote Access Connection Manager, but without further details from Microsoft, it’s not clear how this vulnerability manifests. Finally, there are two EoP fixes for the Print Spooler, with one coming from Oliver Lyak through ZDI. The bug he reported could allow an attacker to create a symbolic link, which could then cause the service to load an arbitrary DLL.

Speaking of the Print Spooler, two of the 17 info disclosure bugs patched by this month’s release impact this component, and both were reported by Oliver through ZDI. These bugs result from the lack of proper validation of a user-supplied path prior to using it in file operations. An attacker can leverage these vulnerabilities to disclose information in the context of SYSTEM. Most of the other Info Disclosure bugs in this release only result in leaks consisting of unspecified memory contents. The other exception to this would be the bug in the Windows Server Service (aka LanManServer). Microsoft states that an attacker could confirm the presence of specific file names and users over an internal network, but they don’t state how this would occur.

There are four fixes for Security Feature Bypass (SFB) bugs in this release, and each one deserves a mention. The first relates to a Virtual Machine Switch with virtual networking in Hyper-V Network Virtualization (HNV). An attacker could bypass extended ACLs and other checks, which implies one guest OS could impact a different guest OS on the same server. Up next is a bug in Office that could allow an attacker to gain personally identifiable information (PII) by bypassing the “ThisDocument.RemovePersonalInformation” functionality. If you’re sharing files online but want your personal information removed, be sure to apply this update. The update for Windows Authentication addresses a vulnerability that could allow Man-in-the-Middle (MITM) attackers to decrypt and read or modify TLS traffic between the client and server. Finally, there is a bypass of BitLocker Device Encryption that requires physical access but could allow an attacker to gain access to encrypted data in certain scenarios. These final two bugs may be a bit unlikely to be seen in the wild, but if they are, the impact would be quite severe. Bugs like these are the ones sought by advanced threat actors for use on high-profile targets.

The May release is rounded out by six updates to address Denial-of-Service bugs in Hyper-V, the WLAN Autoconfig Service, and .NET and Visual Studio. The WLAN vulnerability is limited to a logically adjacent topology and can’t be reached from the internet. The bug in Hyper-V is listed as public, but Microsoft provides no information on where it was posted or how much detail was exposed. There are multiple DoS bugs listed for .NET and Visual Studio, but no further details are provided. One of these .NET bugs is the lone Low-severity bug in this release.

There is one new advisory for May covering improvements to Azure Data Factory and Azure Synapse Pipeline. This was previously mentioned (above) and is in response to CVE-2022-29972. While certainly not new, the latest servicing stack updates can be found in the revised ADV990001.

Looking Ahead

The next Patch Tuesday falls on June 14, and we’ll return with details and patch analysis then. Until then, stay safe, happy patching, and may all your reboots be smooth and clean! (And hope to see you in Vancouver!)