Microsoft Security Bulletin MS16-145 - Critical

• 10/11/2017
• 9 minutes to read
• • 
  • 
  • 

Cumulative Security Update for Microsoft Edge (3204062)

Published: December 13, 2016

Version: 1.0

Executive Summary

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. For more information, see the Affected Software section.

The update addresses the vulnerabilities by:

• Microsoft browser and affected components handle objects in memory
• Microsoft browser checks Same Origin Policy for scripts running inside Web Workers
• Scripting engines handle objects in memory

For more information about the vulnerabilities, see the Vulnerability Information section.

For more information about this update, see Microsoft Knowledge Base Article 3204062.

Affected Software

The following software versions or editions are affected. Versions or editions that are not listed are either past their support life cycle or are not affected. To determine the support life cycle for your software version or edition, see Microsoft Support Lifecycle.

The severity ratings indicated for each affected software assume the potential maximum impact of the vulnerability. For information regarding the likelihood, within 30 days of this security bulletin’s release, of the exploitability of the vulnerability in relation to its severity rating and security impact, please see the Exploitability Index in the December bulletin summary.

Note Please see the Security Update Guide for a new approach to consuming the security update information. You can customize your views and create affected software spreadsheets, as well as download data via a restful API. For more information, please see the Security Updates Guide FAQ. As a reminder, the Security Updates Guide will be replacing security bulletins as of February 2017. Please see our blog post, Furthering our commitment to security updates, for more details.

Severity Ratings and Vulnerability Identifiers

The following severity ratings assume the potential maximum impact of the vulnerability. For information regarding the likelihood, within 30 days of this security bulletin's release, of the exploitability of the vulnerability in relation to its severity rating and security impact, please see the Exploitability Index in the December bulletin summary.

Where specified in the Severity Ratings and Impact table, Critical, Important, and Moderate values indicate severity ratings. For more information, see Security Bulletin Severity Rating System. Refer to the following key for the abbreviations used in the table to indicate maximum impact:

Vulnerability Information

Multiple Microsoft Browser Memory Corruption Vulnerabilities

Multiple remote code execution vulnerabilities exist when affected Microsoft browsers improperly access objects in memory. The vulnerabilities could corrupt memory in such a way that an attacker could execute arbitrary code in the context of the current user. 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, the 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.

An attacker could host a specially crafted website that is designed to exploit the vulnerabilities through affected Microsoft browsers, and then convince a user to view the website. The attacker could also take advantage of compromised websites, or websites that accept or host user-provided content or advertisements, by adding specially crafted content that could exploit the vulnerabilities. In all cases, however, an attacker would have no way to force users to view the attacker-controlled content. Instead, an attacker would have to convince users to take action, typically by an enticement in an email or Instant Messenger message, or by getting them to open an attachment sent through email.

The update addresses the vulnerabilities by modifying how Microsoft browsers handles objects in memory.

The following table contains a link to the standard entry for the vulnerability in the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures list: