Alert - Follina vulnerability impacting Microsoft products - Update 1

Number: AL22-007
Date: 31 May 2022
Updated: 14 June  2022

Audience

This Alert is intended for IT professionals and managers of notified organizations.

Purpose

An Alert is used to raise awareness of a recently identified cyber threat Cyber threatA threat actor, using the internet, who takes advantage of a known vulnerability in a product for the purposes of exploiting a network and the information the network carries. that may impact cyber information assets, and to provide additional detection DetectionThe monitoring and analyzing of system events in order to identify unauthorized attempts to access system resources. and mitigation advice to recipients. The Canadian Centre for Cyber Security Cyber securityThe protection of digital information, as well as the integrity of the infrastructure housing and transmitting digital information. More specifically, cyber security includes the body of technologies, processes, practices and response and mitigation measures designed to protect networks, computers, programs and data from attack, damage or unauthorized access so as to ensure confidentiality, integrity and availability. ("Cyber Centre") is also available to provide additional assistance regarding the content of this Alert to recipients as requested.

Overview

On 30 May 2022 Microsoft published guidance for a vulnerability VulnerabilityA flaw or weakness in the design or implementation of an information system or its environment that could be exploited to adversely affect an organization's assets or operations. , dubbed “Follina”, impacting the Microsoft Support Diagnostic Tool (MSDT) with active exploitation recently reported due to the release of proofs of concept.

Details

On 30 May 2022 Microsoft published guidance for a vulnerability impacting the Microsoft Support Diagnostic Tool (MSDT). ^{Footnote 1} This vulnerability is also known as “Follina” and has been designated CVE-2022-30190.

Exploitation of CVE-2022-30190, with a Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) score of 7.8, may result in the execution of arbitrary code. Several technical reviews of this vulnerability have been published in open source ^{Footnote 2Footnote 3}, along with several proofs of concept.

Open-source reporting has indicated that active exploitation of this vulnerability has been observed in the wild. ^{Footnote 4}

Update 1

On 14 June 2022, a patch for CVE-2022-30190 was released as part of the June 2022 Security Updates.^{Footnote 7} Organizations are encouraged to update affected products according to Microsoft’s recommendations.

Recommended actions

Update 1 - If patching is not possible, Although a patch for this vulnerability is not yet provided, the Cyber Centre recommends organizations follow the mitigations provided by Microsoft and open source where possible, which include:

• Disabling the MSDT URL Protocol, which inhibits the ability for MSDT to launch. ^{Footnote 1}
• If using Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, block Office applications from creating child processes. ^{Footnote 3Footnote 5}
• Disabling Troubleshooting Wizards via the EnableDiagnostics registry value until a patch is available. ^{Footnote 5}

In addition, the Cyber Centre recommends organizations review the Cyber Centre’s advice on recognizing phishing PhishingAn attempt by a third party to solicit confidential information from an individual, group, or organization by mimicking or spoofing a specific, usually well-known brand, usually for financial gain. Phishers attempt to trick users into disclosing personal data, such as credit card numbers, online banking credentials, and other sensitive information, which they may then use to commit fraudulent acts. techniques and educate users on the dangers of phishing. ^{Footnote 6} Users should never open any emails from unexpected contacts or with unexpected content.

The Cyber Centre has not verified all the technical recommendations described in this disclosure and is providing this information as is for awareness. Before applying any of the above recommended actions it is important that organizations check with vendors, application developers and systems administrators to ensure business services and network environments continuity are assured prior to implementing any enterprise level changes.

Should activity matching the content of this Alert be discovered, recipients are encouraged to report via the My Cyber Portal, contact the Cyber Centre by email (contact@cyber.gc.ca), or by telephone (1-833-CYBER-88 or 1-833-292-3788).