PrintNightmare

Owned by Andrew Parlette, created
Last updated: Jul 07, 2021
1 min read

Description

On June 30 a Windows vulnerability was made known and called Windows Print Spooler Remote Code Execution Vulnerability, or CVE-2021-34527, and referred to as “PrintNightmare”. Several possible workarounds became known which are discussed below for compatibility with Tricerat printing products.

Microsoft Updates

On July 6, 2021, Microsoft released emergency patches to address the vulnerability. After preliminary testing at Tricerat, ScrewDrivers is compatible with this Microsoft update and can safely be applied to desktops and servers. It is strongly advised to test this update with ScrewDrivers in your environment to confirm functionality prior to large-scale rollout.

Deny Access to Spool Folder

The blog truesec reported a workaround to the vulnerability that creates an explicit deny permission for SYSTEM on the spool folder. This alone will break Tricerat ScrewDrivers printing if done on VDI, terminal servers, or print servers. To use this permission setting with Tricerat, modify the permissions specifically on the following files to allow SYSTEM to have full control permissions.

v7:

C:\Windows\System32\spool\drivers\x64\3\ScrewDriversDrv.dll
C:\Windows\System32\spool\drivers\x64\3\ScrewDriversUI.dll

v6:

C:\Windows\System32\spool\drivers\x64\3\sd6drv.dll
C:\Windows\System32\spool\drivers\x64\3\sd6ui.dll

Disable the Print Spooler

The initial recommendation from Microsoft was to turn off the print spooler service. Be advised that if the print spooler is turned off on the session desktop, print server, or remote desktop client, printing will not work. This applies to Tricerat ScrewDrivers and any other type of printing.

Additional Resources

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