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posted by on Monday February 20 2017, @06:24PM   Printer-friendly
from the black-hats-now-have-a-month-to-play dept.

For the second time in three months, Google engineers have disclosed a bug in the Windows OS without Microsoft having released a fix before Google's announcement. The bug in question affects the Windows GDI (Graphics Device Interface) (gdi32.dll), which is a library that enables applications to use graphics and formatted text on both the video display and a local printer.

According to a bug report filed by Google's Project Zero team, the bug was initially part of a larger collection of issues discovered in March 2016, and fixed in June 2016, via Microsoft's security bulletin MS16-074. Mateusz Jurczyk, the Google engineer who found the first bugs, says the MS16-074 patches were insufficient, and some of the issues he reported continued to remain vulnerable. Following subsequent tests, the researcher resubmitted his bug report in November, which Microsoft failed to patch in the 90 days interval Google allows vendors to fix bugs before going public with its reports.

This is the second time Google has taken this step against Microsoft after in November 2016 it disclosed details about a zero-day exploited by a cyber-espionage group known as APT28 (Strontium) a few days before Microsoft's November Patch Tuesday. Back then, Google said it took this step to allow users to protect themselves until Microsoft published a patch. Microsoft's Terry Myerson, Executive Vice President, Windows and Devices Group, didn't see it the same way, describing Google's actions as "disappointing" because it put customers at greater risk of exploitation.

Source:
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/after-microsoft-delayed-patch-tuesday-google-discloses-windows-bug/


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  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday February 21 2017, @01:24AM

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Tuesday February 21 2017, @01:24AM (#469530)

    Without this kind of pressure, they never get around to releasing any patches. Historically proven.

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