Windows 10: Why would Microsoft put an updated/patched file into an old KB instead of pushing out a new...

To qualify this, My job among other things is making sure critical and exploitable vulnerabilities are patched as fast as possible on our assets. One of our vulnerability scanners just dinged me on devices to update KB4512508 which it dinged me about last month. After looking into it. The original patch updated %systemroot%\system32\ntoskrnl.exe from version 10.0.18362.30 to 10.0.18362.295. Now the same KB is updating the ntoskrnl.exe file to version 10.0.18362.418. Are KB's turning into UWP apps?


Can someone from Microsoft please explain why this isn't being pushed out with a different KN number? Wouldn't a system that already has KB4512508 installed potentially ignore this update thinking it is already patched?


Thank you for your time

:)

 

Cannot find individual KB numbers for patches inside Windows Cumulative Update

I have been trying to find a source for the individual patches contained in the new Windows Cumulative Updates, as I would like to be able to compare the KB numbers against the security bulletins. So far I cannot find the list of contained patches, only an overview.

Are they stored anywhere on the machine (I have checked the registry etc, but only find KBs for the Cumulative Update), if not, is there an online source for this data?

 

Microsoft Issues Updated Animated Cursor Patch

Microsoft has released an updated version of its MS07-017 patch that fixes some incompatibility problems with the animated cursor vulnerability patch. Early installers of the original 925902(MS07-017) patch that was issued on Tuesday reported seeing error messages with their Realtek HD Audio Control panel. In addition to Realtek, users of three lesser known programs could be affected. Those programs are ElsterFormular, TUGZip and CD-Tag. Microsoft says the problem appears because of the user32.dll and the hhctrl.ocx files have the same memory address after the patch. You can download the updated 935448 patch from here.

Source: TG Daily

 

Microsoft Pushes New Software-Based Spectre, Meltdown Mitigation Patches

The Spectre/Meltdown road is long and pocked with lawsuits and security holes as it is, and Microsoft is one of the players that's trying to put the asphalt back to tip-top, Autobahn-worth shape. The company has already improved users' security to the Meltdown and Spectre exploits on its OS side; however, hardware patches, and specifically BIOS-editing ones are much harder to deploy and distribute by the PC chain. That may be one of the reasons why Microsoft is now again stepping up with software-based mitigations for Intel-based systems, specifically.

The new updates introduce a software-based CPU microcode revision update, and work at the OS-level to plug some security holes on your Intel processors that might otherwise remain unpatched. The reasons for them remaining unpatched can be many: either Intel taking even more time to deploy patches to the still vulnerable systems; your OEMs not deploying the Intel CPU microcode revisions via a BIOS update; or the good old "I forgot I could do it" user story. Of course, being software based means these Microsoft patches will have to be reapplied should users format their Windows system. The update can for now only be manually downloaded and installed, and can only be applied to version 1709 (Fall Creators Update) and Windows Server version 1709 (Server Core), but that's definitely better than the alternative of forcing less knowledgeable users to try and find their way through BIOS updates. Of course, that is assuming OEMs will ever push BIOS updates to their products.