A few days ago, Microsoft released a rush update for Internet Explorer. That patch ensured that a zero day vulnerability could no longer be exploited by malicious parties. But now it appears that the spoedupdate has unforeseen consequences: some Lenovo laptops do not start up after installing the patch.
The vulnerability can be found in Internet Explorer versions 9 to 11 and multiple versions of Windows. Where the patch ensures that the vulnerability can no longer be exploited, it seems to cause other problems. This is because people with certain Lenovo laptops report that, after installing patch KB4467691, their device does not start up anymore.
Problem and solution
When Microsoft put the patch online, it already knew that there would be some problems with older versions of Windows 10. For example, there were known problems with the .NET framework and with web links in the start menu. But now it appears that there are other problems as well. On the page where Microsoft writes about the patch, you can now also find the following:
After installing KB4467691, some Lenovo laptops with less than 8GB of working memory may prevent Windows from booting up.
Microsoft has already come up with a temporary solution to the problem. Users with a device that does not want to boot must disable secure boot. BitLocker may be enabled on a device. If so, users may need to follow certain BitLocker recovery steps in order to be able to use their device again.
At the same time, Microsoft confirms that it is working with Lenovo to solve the problems. In an upcoming release, the company will provide an update. When exactly that will be, is not known.
The vulnerability
Microsoft released the urgent update for Internet Explorer on 20 December 2018. The update made sure that malicious parties can no longer exploit the CVE-2018-8653 vulnerability. Precise details about the way in which this goes exactly in its course have not been disclosed.
We do know, however, that an attacker who successfully exploits the vulnerability gets the same user rights as the current user of a device. If the user is the administrator, then the attacker gets the same rights and can take over a device completely.
This news article was automatically translated from Dutch to give Techzine.eu a head start. All news articles after September 1, 2019 are written in native English and NOT translated. All our background stories are written in native English as well. For more information read our launch article.