Patch Tuesday Analysis for March 2011

All three bulletins this month are related to Microsoft Security Advisory 2269637 that was published last August. It has to do with the way DLLs are loaded by applications. In addition to Microsoft products, third party software may be vulnerable. Workstations are at greatest risk.

MS11-015 addresses two vulnerabilities. One vulnerability is addressed by modifying the way Media Player and Media Center opens a .dvr-ms (Digital Video Recording) file. While some Windows Server 2008 R2 operating systems are vulnerable, it is not likely that a logged on user would be viewing media files on a server. The other vulnerability is related to the class of vulnerabilities that affects how applications load external libraries (DLLs). So the patch modifies the way the library is loaded.

MS11-016 addresses another of that same class of vulnerabilities, this time in the way Microsoft Groove 2007 loads external libraries. This is also publicly disclosed and a proof of concept has been published. Groove Server is not affected.

The third bulletin is MS11-017 addressing a DLL loading vulnerability in Remote Desktop (RDP) Client. While a client can be a server, it is not likely that an admin would be using an .rdp in an untrusted location that has the malicious DLL.

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