Hi folks. If you are
wondering how many computers on your network have QuickTime installed and how
to get rid of it, I’ve got some help for you in the form of a video, PowerShell
script, AppLocker policy and free tools from SolarWinds. If you don’t already know why it’s urgent to
uninstall QuickTime, be aware that Apple has announced it’s no longer
supporting QuickTime for Windows even though TrendMicro has announced 2
zero-day heap corruption vulnerabilities that allow remote code execution. According to my understanding of this, Apple
never provided any warning that they’d stop patching their software. That’s really lame. You have to say this for Microsoft, they give
you warning. So every Windows endpoint
with QuickTime installed is a sitting duck.
Even the Department of Homeland Security is warning folks to kill
QuickTime before the bad guys exploit it against you and your network.
Barry and I have put together 2 videos:
1. How to spend about 15 minutes with a trial
download of SolarWinds
Patch Manager to
a. Quickly inventory all the endpoints with
QuickTime installed
i. We got the folks at SolarWinds
to post a report on Thwack that reports all computers with QuickTime installed.
b. Remotely un-install QuickTime from those PCs
c. Without installing any agents!
2. Or you can use AppLocker to block QuickTime from executing on PCs where it is installed
I recommend using the SolarWinds
Patch Manager option because it’s fast, easy and free and it eliminates the risk by
uninstalling QuickTime. My alternative
AppLocker procedure only blocks QuickTime; it doesn’t install it and it doesn’t
address malware that knows how to bypass the Application Identity service.
If you are going to the 30-day trial of SolarWinds
Patch Manager to remove QuickTime please use
this URL to download it because that helps us keep the lights on here at
UltimateWindowsSecurity. And don’t
worry, the good folks at SolarWinds
are good with you using the eval to solve this problem. You might want to keep Patch Manager once you
see it. After explaining how to use it
to get rid of QuickTime I’ll explain why I like Patch Manager.
Download
PatchManager and install it. Watch
Barry’s video to help you save time. It
only takes Barry 11 minutes to install Patch Manager, find all the PCs with
QuickTime and uninstall it. Follow along
with Barry and you’ll be done in time to take the rest of the morning off.
If you are interested in my alternative (and less secure)
AppLocker method, watch this video.
Download Randy's Powershell Script here: http://tinyurl.com/ze2okye
Both methods work without agents! But only Patch Manager actually eliminates
the risk. And the no agent thing is what
I love about Patch Manager. It provides
software inventory and 3rd party patching (Adobe, Java, Apple, etc)
without requiring you to install yet another agent. How does it do it? It’s pretty cool. Patch Manager uses WMI for
querying PCs but then it leverages the already existing Windows Update agent
baked into every Windows computer to push 3rd party patches
and of course Microsoft patches too. It
does this through a really cool integration with WSUS.
So you get the best of both worlds. Leverage the built-in infrastructure Windows
already provides for patching Microsoft products to patch 3rd party
products too! Brilliant. Again, if you want to use Patch Manager for getting
rid of QuickTime for free or just want to try it out, please use
this URL. It helps fund our research
and real training for free we provide nearly each week.