Security Updates Exchange 2013-2019 (Oct2020)

A quick blog on security updates for Exchange Server 2013, 2016 and 2019 released October 13th. These fixes address the following vulnerability:

  • CVE-2020-16969: Microsoft Exchange Information Disclosure Vulnerability
    An information disclosure vulnerability exists in how Microsoft Exchange validates tokens when handling certain messages. An attacker who successfully exploited the vulnerability could use this to gain further information from a user.

    To exploit the vulnerability, an attacker could include specially crafted OWA messages that could be loaded, without warning or filtering, from the attacker-controlled URL. This callback vector provides an information disclosure tactic used in web beacons and other types of tracking systems.

    The security update corrects the way that Exchange handles these token validations.

The exploits can be fixed by single security update, which you can find in the table below per current Exchange version.

ExchangeDownloadBuildKBSupersedes
Exchange 2019 CU7Download15.2.721.3KB4581424KB4577352
Exchange 2019 CU6Download15.2.659.7KB4581424KB4577352
Exchange 2016 CU18Download15.1.2106.3KB4581424KB4577352
Exchange 2016 CU17Download15.1.2044.7KB4581424KB4577352
Exchange 2013 CU23Download15.0.1497.7KB4581424KB4536988

Be advised that these security updates are Cumulative Update level specific. You cannot apply the update for Exchange 2016 CU17 to Exchange 2016 CU16. Also, the security update download has the same name for different Cumulative Updates, and I would suggest tagging the file name with the CU level, e.g. Exchange2016-CU17-KB4581424-x64-en.msp.

Also, run the Security Update from an elevated command prompt, to prevent issues during installation. And on a final note, as with any patch or update, I’d recommend to apply this in a acceptance environment first, prior to implementing it in production.

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About Michel de Rooij

Michel de Rooij, with over 25 years of mixed consulting and automation experience with Exchange and related technologies, is a consultant for Rapid Circle. He assists organizations in their journey to and using Microsoft 365, primarily focusing on Exchange and associated technologies and automating processes using PowerShell or Graph. Michel's authorship of several Exchange books and role in the Office 365 for IT Pros author team are a testament to his knowledge. Besides writing for Practical365.com, he maintains a blog on eightwone.com with supporting scripts on GitHub. Michel has been a Microsoft MVP since 2013.

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