Microsoft Patch Tuesday February 2022

Microsoft patched 48 CVEs in the February 2022 Patch Tuesday release, with all 48 rated as important. While none of the patches address bugs that earned Microsoft’s most dire “critical” rating, there are multiple “remote code execution” vulnerabilities.

This month’s update includes patches for:

Azure Data Explorer
Kestrel Web Server
Microsoft Dynamics
Microsoft Dynamics GP
Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based)
Microsoft Office
Microsoft Office Excel
Microsoft Office Outlook
Microsoft Office SharePoint
Microsoft Office Visio
Microsoft OneDrive
Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Windows Codecs Library
Power BI
Roaming Security Rights Management Services
Role: DNS Server
Role: Windows Hyper-V
SQL Server
Visual Studio Code
Windows Common Log File System Driver
Windows DWM Core Library
Windows Kernel
Windows Kernel-Mode Drivers
Windows Named Pipe File System
Windows Print Spooler Components
Windows Remote Access Connection Manager
Windows Remote Procedure Call Runtime
Windows User Account Profile
Windows Win32K

The number for each type of vulnerability is listed below:

16 Elevation of Privilege Vulnerabilities
3 Security Feature Bypass Vulnerabilities
16 Remote Code Execution Vulnerabilities
5 Information Disclosure Vulnerabilities
5 Denial of Service Vulnerabilities
3 Spoofing Vulnerabilities
22 Edge – Chromium Vulnerabilities

Windows Kernel Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability

CVE-2022-21989 is an EoP vulnerability in the Windows Kernel and the only zero-day vulnerability addressed this month. This vulnerability is more likely to be exploited, however it has not been actively exploited at the time this blog was published. The advisory does note that an attacker needs to take additional actions prior to exploitation of this vulnerability, which is evident by the “High” rating for “Attack Complexity” in the CVSSv3 score of 7.8.

Microsoft SharePoint Server Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

CVE-2022-22005 is a RCE vulnerability in Microsoft SharePoint Server with a CVSSv3 score of 8.8. Microsoft rates this as “exploitation more likely,” however at this time no public proof-of-concept appears to exist. In order to exploit this vulnerability, an attacker would need to be authenticated and have the ability to create pages in SharePoint.

Windows Print Spooler Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability

CVE-2022-21999, CVE-2022-22718, CVE-2022-22717 and CVE-2022-21997 are EoP vulnerabilities in Windows Print Spooler. CVE-2022-21999 and CVE-2022-22718 received CVSSv3 scores of 7.8 and were rated Exploitation More Likely. CVE-2022-22717 (CVSSv3 7.0) and CVE-2022-21997 (CVSSv3 7.1) were rated Less Likely.

Win32k Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability

CVE-2022-21996 is an EoP vulnerability in Microsoft’s Win32k, a core kernel-side driver used in Windows. This vulnerability received a CVSSv3 score of 7.8 and is more likely to be exploited according to Microsoft. This vulnerability is similar to another EoP flaw from January’s Patch Tuesday release, CVE-2022-21882. CVE-2022-21882 has been actively exploited in the wild by threat actors, CVE-2022-21882 is a patch bypass for another vulnerability, CVE-2021-1732.

Named Pipe File System Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability

CVE-2022-22715 is an EoP vulnerability in the Named Pipe File System. It is rated as Exploitation More Likely. To exploit this flaw, an attacker would need to have established a presence on the vulnerable system in order to run a specially crafted application. Successful exploitation would allow an attacker to run processes with elevated privileges.