Tag Archives: Security Update

Exchange

Exchange Security Updates August 2022

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On August 9, 2022 Microsoft has released important Security Updates for Exchange 2013, Exchange 2016 and Exchange 2019 that are rated ‘critical’ (Elevation of Privileges) and ‘important’ (Information Disclosure).

This security update rollup resolves vulnerabilities found in Microsoft Exchange Server. To learn more about these vulnerabilities, see the following Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE):

  • CVE-2022-21979 – Microsoft Exchange Information Disclosure Vulnerability
  • CVE-2022-21980 – Microsoft Exchange Server Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability
  • CVE-2022-24477 – Microsoft Exchange Server Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability
  • CVE-2022-24516 – Microsoft Exchange Server Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability
  • CVE-2022-30134 – Microsoft Exchange Server Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability

This Security Update introduces support for Extended Protection. Extended protection enhances authentication to mitigate ‘man in the middle’ attacks. Extended protection is supported on the latest version of Exchange 2016 and Exchange 2019 (2022H1) and the August 2022 Security Update (this one) so it is vital to bring your Exchange servers up-to-date. 

Be aware of the following limitations:

  • Extended protection is only supported on the current and previous versions of Exchange (i.e. Exchange 2016 CU21/CU21 and Exchange 2019 CU12/CU11) and Exchange 2013 CU23 with the August 2022 SU installed
  • Extended protection is not supported on hybrid servers with the hybrid agent.
  • Extended protection is not supported with SSL Offloading. SSL Re-encrypt (also knows as SSL Bridging) is supported, as long as the SSL certificate on the load balancer is identical to the SSL certificate on the Exchange servers.
  • If you still have Exchange 2013 in your environment and you are using Public Folders, make sure your Public Folders are hosted on Exchange 2016 or Exchange 2019.

Note. Make sure you have your Exchange server properly configured with all related security settings. Use the latest HealthChecker.ps1 script to find any anomalies in your Exchange configuration. If you fail to do so, the script to enable Extended Protection will fail with numerous error messages.

Enable Extended Protection

First off, make sure you have the latest Cumulative Update installed on all your Exchange servers and install the August 2022 Security Updates on all your servers, including the Exchange 2013 servers.

Another important thing is that you must make sure that TLS settings across all Exchange servers are identical. You can use the healthchecker.ps1 script to figure out if this is the case. Personally, it took me quite some time to get this right.

The easiest way to configure Extended Protection is by using the ExchangeExtendedProtectionManagement.ps1 script (which can be found on github). This script can enable Extended Protection on all Exchange servers in your organization, but by using the -SkipExchangeServerNames option you can exclude certain Exchange servers (for example, Exchange 2013 servers or servers running the hybrid agent). There’s also the -ExchangeServerNames option which lets you specify which servers to enable the Extended Protection on.

More information and downloads can be found here:

Exchange versionDownloadKB article
Exchange 2013 CU23https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=104482KB5015321
Exchange 2016 CU22https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=104481KB5015322
Exchange 2016 2022H1https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=104480KB5015322
Exchange 2019 CU11https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=104479KB5015322
Exchange 2019 2022H1https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=104478KB5015322
Exchange Protection Scripthttps://aka.ms/ExchangeEPScript
Healthchecker scriptshttps://aka.ms/ExchangeHealthChecker

Some important notes:

  • As always, make sure you thoroughly test this in your lab environment, especially enabling Extended protection.
  • You can start the SU from a command prompt or from Windows Explorer, no need anymore to start from a command prompt with elevated privileges.
  • This SU contains all security updates from previous SUs for this particular Exchange version.

Exchange

January 2022 Exchange Security Updates

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On january 11, 2022 Microsoft released new Security Updates for Exchange versions:

  • Exchange 2013 CU23
  • Exchange 2016 CU21, Exchange 2016 CU22
  • Exchange 2019 CU10, Exchange 2019 CU11

The following vulnerabilities have been addressed in these Security Updates:

No exploits have been found in the wild, but it is recommended to install these Security Updates as soon as possible.

These updates are targeted toward Exchange server on-premises, including Exchange servers used in a hybrid configuration.

Please note the following:

  • Run the Exchange Server Healthcheck script on your Exchange server to get an overview of all issues in your environment, including installed Security Updates and Cumulative Updates versions.
  • If running an old (and unsupported!) version of Exchange server, please update to the latest CU to get in a supported state and install these Security Updates.
  • When installing manually, start the update from a command prompt with elevated privileges. If you fail to do so, it will look like installation successfully finishes, but various issues will occur. This is not needed when installing using Windows Update or WSUS.
  • Security Updates are also cumulative, so this Security Updates contains all previous Security Updates for this specific Cumulative Update. There’s no need to install previous Security Updates before installing this Security Update.
  • The December 2021 Cumulative Update is postponed, check the link on the Microsoft site. Microsoft does not release Security Updates and Security Updates in the same month, so do not except a new Cumulative Update anytime soon.
  • This Security Update does not contain a fix for the Y2K22 problem that popped up on January 1, see the Email stuck in Exchange on-premises Transport Queues article which also contains the solution.
  • As always, download and deploy in your test environment to see if it all works well in your environment.
Exchange versionDownloadKnowledge base
Exchange 2013 CU23https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=103857KB5008631
Exchange 2016 CU21https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=103856KB5008631
Exchange 2016 CU22https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=103855KB5008631
Exchange 2019 CU10https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=103853KB5008631
Exchange 2019 CU11https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=103854KB5008631
Exchange

Exchange security updates November 2021

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I have been away for a couple of days, but you already might have seen that Microsoft released a number of Security Updates for Exchange 2019, Exchange 2016 and Exchange 2013, but only for the last two Cumulative Updates (as always).

Security Updates are available for the following products:

Exchange versionDownloadKnowledge Base
Exchange 2019 CU11https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=103643KB5007409
Exchange 2019 CU10https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=103642KB5007409
Exchange 2016 CU22https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=103644KB5007409
Exchange 2016 CU21https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=103645KB5007409
Exchange 2013 CU23https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=103646KB5007409

The following vulnerabilities are addressed in these updates:

Security Updates are CU specific and can only be applied to the specific Cumulative Update. When trying to install a Security Update for another CU, an error message will be returned.

Security Updates are also cumulative, so this Security Update contains all previous security updates for this specific CU. There’s no need to install previous Security Updates before this Security Update.

As always, after downloading a Security Update, start the Security Update from a command prompt with elevated privileges (‘Run as Administrator’) to prevent an erratic installation. This does not apply when installing a Security Update via Windows Update or WSUS.

Exchange

Exchange Security Updates October 2021

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On October 12, 2021 Microsoft released Security Updates for vulnerabilities found in Exchange server 2013 CU23, Exchange server 2016 (CU21/CU22) and Exchange server 2019 (CU10/CU11). Severity is marked as ‘important’.

If you are running one of these versions, it is recommended to apply these security updates. Please note that the security updates are CU specific, and these are not interchangeable. Security updates are also cumulative, so these security updates contain all previous security updates for the same cumulative update. If you are running an older version of Exchange, it is strongly recommended to upgrade to the latest Cumulative Update and apply the security updates. You can use the healthchecker script to inventory your environment.

Please use the Microsoft Security Update Guide for more specific information about the vulnerabilities.

As always, after downloading the security updates, start the installation from an elevated command prompt (‘run as administrator’). This does not apply when installing from Windows Update or WSUS. And of course, please the security updates in a test environment first before installing in production.

You can download the security updates for the following products here:

Exchange

Exchange server patching performance and windows defender

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Patching an Exchange server, whether it be Windows Update, a Cumulative Update or a Security Update always takes a long time. When looking at the task manager, it is always the Antimalware Service Executable (Windows Defender Antivirus Service) that is responsible for this. It just consumes a lot of processor cycles:

To overcome this and speed up the overall performance of patching the Exchange server you can temporarily disable Windows Defender.

For Exchange 2016 running on Windows 2016 follow these steps:

Start | Settings | Update and Security | Windows Defender

For Exchange 2019 running on Windows 2019 follow these steps:

Start | Settings | Update and Security | Windows Security | Open Windows Security I Virus & Threat protection I Manage Settings

And switch Real-time protection to off as shown in the following screenshot:

Much easier is using PowerShell, just execute this command:

Set-MpPreference -DisableRealtimeMonitoring $True

When patching the Exchange server you will notice how much faster it will be. When patched and rebooted, enable Windows Defender by executing the following PowerShell command:

Set-MpPreference -DisableRealtimeMonitoring $False

You can check the status of Windows defender using one of the following commands:

Get-MpPreference | select DisableRealtimeMonitoring
Get-MpComputerStatus

Check the output for RealTimeProtectionEnabled, this should be set to True. As a sidenote, there is a lot of other interesting information when executing Get-MpComputerStatus for anti-malware.