Microsoft’s December Patch Tuesday update delivers 59 fixes, including two zero-days (CVE-2022-44698 and CVE-2022-44710) that require immediate attention on the Windows platform. This is a network-focused update (TCP/IP and RDP) that will require significant testing with an emphasis on ODBC connections, Hyper-V systems, Kerberos authentication, and printing (both local and remote).   Microsoft also published an urgent out-of-band update (CVE-2022-37966) to address serious Kerberos authentication issues. 

Known issues

• ODBC: After installing the December update, applications that use ODBC connections through Microsoft ODBC SQL Server Driver (sqlsrv32.dll) to access databases might not connect. You might receive the following error messages: “The EMS System encountered a problem. Message: [Microsoft] [ODBC SQL Server Driver] Unknown token received from SQL Server”.
• RDP and Remote Access: After you install this or later updates on Windows desktop systems, you might be unable to reconnect to (Microsoft) Direct Access after temporarily losing network connectivity or transitioning between Wi-Fi networks or access points.
• Hyper-V: After installing this update on Hyper-V hosts managed by SDN-configured System Center Virtual Machine Manager (VMM), you might receive an error on workflows involving creating a new Network Adapter (also called a Network Interface Card or NIC) joined to a VM network or a new Virtual Machine (VM).
• Active Directory: Due to additional security requirements in addressing the security vulnerabilities in CVE-2022-38042, new security checks are implemented on domain net join requests. These extra checks may generate the following error message: “Error 0xaac (2732): NERR_AccountReuseBlockedByPolicy: An account with the same name exists in Active Directory. Re-using the account was blocked by a security policy.”

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