14 DAY TRIAL // It’s a well-known fact that Microsoft is working together with security experts from all across the world, but in most of the cases, the company only receives info and vulnerability details from two or three researchers in order to have a better look at a specific security flaw.
MS15-056, however, required the work of no less than 19 security experts, who worked together with Microsoft to patch Internet Explorer this month and repair vulnerabilities found in the browser.
The company hasn’t revealed how many vulnerabilities it actually fixed, but it has explained that the most severe allowed remote code execution, giving the attacker the chance to obtain the same privileges as the logged-in user and thus compromise an unpatched PC in the case of an administrator account.
Buggy patch
While it’s good to see so many security experts supporting Microsoft in its efforts to address problems in its software and fix vulnerabilities that could expose users’ computers, it might seem like the Redmond-based tech giant failed to do its part of the job.
Some users are reporting problems when trying to install KB3058515, with many claiming that the update is being offered again and again despite the fact that it’s being displayed as installed successfully.
Right now, the patch is still available for users despite these reports, and this could be a sign that it’s not a widespread issue and only a small numbers of PCs are getting error 80092004 on Windows 7.
Below is the list of all security researchers who contributed to this month’s cumulative update for Internet Explorer:
Pengfei Guo of Qihoo 360 SkyLined working with VeriSign iDefense Labs Zheng Huang of Baidu Scloud XTeam Linan Hao of the Qihoo 360 Vulcan Team Bo Qu of Palo Alto Networks Anonymous working with HP's Zero Day Initiative Dhanesh Kizhakkinan of FireEye, Inc. Thomas Vanhoutte working with HP's Zero Day Initiative Chen Zhang (demi6od) of NSFOCUS Security Team Haifei Li of McAfee Labs IPS Team Yuki Chen of Qihoo 360 working with HP's Zero Day Initiative lokihardt@ASRT working with HP's Zero Day Initiative Jason Kratzer working with VeriSign iDefense Labs Jihui Lu of KeenTeam (@K33nTeam) Jack Tang of Trend Micro 0016EECD9D7159A949DAD3BC17E0A939 working with HP's Zero Day Initiative An anonymous researcher working with Beyond Security's SecuriTeam Secure Disclosure team and Ashutosh Mehra working with HP's Zero Day Initiative Xiaoyin Liu @general_nfs